How to Romance a Film Geek
by lovelyapper
Summary: A Modern Muggle Wolfstar AU. Why would a solitary, grumpy painter want a flatmate? Sirius certainly didn't. He was doing fine by himself, with his boozing, smoking, and occasional fuck-buddies. He didn't want to live with anyone, let alone be in love with someone. Little did he know, a film-loving stranger was going to change all that.
1. Chapter 1: Vacancy at the Bates Motel

**A/N: **Guys, one day I had this grand idea, called "I should write me some Wolfstar!" but instead of starting something as brilliant as my usual f-ing drivel, I started this. I don't know what this is. A Modern Muggle Wolfstar AU sounds like a disease, and it is. It is driving me insane, yet at the same time I love writing it. I'm having fun and I hope it shows.

I also hope it's not too... weird. In this AU, I mix up different generations and there's a few original characters (names only) as well. I have almost written this whole story already, making it about 100k (+-) but I'm not going to bother my lovely beta with more of the finished chapters unless people actually want to read this. So comments are welcome and, if you want to read more, _needed _for affirmation.

I know that some of the things here might not instantly make sense, but they will as the story continues.

Cheers in advance if someone reads this. xoxo

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters. I don't own anything else mentioned in this story, except, well... the story.

**Beta: **lowi (YOU ARE MY SUNSHINEEE)

* * *

**Day 1, Tuesday: Vacancy at the Bates Motel **

By the time it was four in the afternoon of that particular Tuesday, Sirius was ready to pull out his ridiculously overgrown, shaggy hair.

Someone in the neighbouring apartment building had put up an ad to promote a room for a rent in their flat, but of course the ad had a typo in it, and all the interested viewers had come knocking on _his_ door.

He reckoned that everyone welcomed the typo, though; his flat was in an older building in central-London, in a small street, between cutesy clothes shops and foreign restaurants and suffocating apartment buildings that loomed behind it, breathing on its neck. Ever since he had seen the place the first time, he had always thought the façade of the building to be rather welcoming with its red bricked exterior, a pair of White cedars in each side of the apartment entrance, and (even) a fucking awning over the large window of an antique boutique on the ground floor. The building was, in all its authenticity, the most adorable bloody thing he had ever seen.

So, if _he_ would have had the chance to choose between _that_ building and the concrete monster behind it, he wouldn't have even wasted a second on the thought.

Walking by the place was like crawling into a magical wardrobe, or strolling along a yellow brick road after having a candy cane session with the frigging Munchkins; it was kind of like another world – not that Sirius spent his time thinking about that every time he walked around the corner to go buy more tea from Tesco, but it was. There was even a small notice board by the front door of the building, one with a rather extravagant framework, and which Sirius had never used during his time there. He hadn't dogs or high heel wedges that might have gone missing.

His keys were a splendid candidate for that, however: if someone was to ask him how many times had he duplicated the spare one he had given his neighbour in case of emergencies, he would say "Only once," but that would be awfully inaccurate. In actuality he had no system whatsoever to remember to take his keys with him or to keep them safe, so he had to knock on Gabrielle's door at least every third month and ask for the spare one. Thankfully he hadn't attached anything remotely revealing to any of the cut keys he had lost previously, so he was certain his flat would remain safe for the time being.

The view to the generous street opened under the small pane windows of his living room and kitchen, and heretofore, he had spent a lot of time admiring it, daydreaming on the living room window sill and easily smoking a whole pack of cigarettes on one sitting. But now that he was older, the sight was nothing spectacular to him anymore. He had got used to it, kind of like one gets used to basically anything after a good while – yet never thinking about it consciously, Sirius somehow knew it had something to do with the fact that he hadn't been in love in a very long time; because the last time he was, he had done nothing but fantasised on that sill to the point it seemed he had nidulated there.

But as one of his musical heroes sang in 1964: the times they are a-changin'.

Each floor had only two apartments, since the building wasn't at all that humongous and the flats were rather big, if one was going to measure by the standards of newly built places. Although his flat was on the second floor, Sirius was all right with the fact that the lift had been absolutely busted for three years and no one was doing anything about it. Two flights of stairs were not a threat to him, even though he unknowingly avoided exercising.

In addition to Sirius, no one else seemed to care about the broken lift, either; in the same floor as Sirius, as his key-keeping neighbour, lived Gabrielle, a petite French woman, who went for jogs on her days off (weekends) and who loved show wrestling, so it was presumable she had no problems climbing the steps. Under them lived an elderly and widowed woman with her two English Bulldogs, and a young Pakistani couple, who, when using their flat, kept a very low profile. Sirius supposed it had something to do with their wall neighbour.

Albeit Sirius had previously thought otherwise, the old woman had been able to scramble the steps up and down whenever she needed, and since she hadn't complained to anyone (she did so for every other thing), they assumed she was at least somewhat happy with the situation. During the ten years that Sirius had lived in the building, Mrs Podmore had complained about almost anything that had room between "Heaven and Hell", the latter being the place where Sirius was, allegedly, going after his sin-filled life.

The latest subject of her complaint hadn't been Sirius' sexuality (how in the hell had she learnt about that anyway), but a bunch of invisible mice that had been eating her crackers in the middle of the night a few weeks back. She had insisted that each and every one of the active members of the building (meaning only Gabrielle and Sirius in addition to herself) were to take action and install at least fifteen mousetraps in their respective apartments, and if possible, with cascabels. As she had told them this in their condominium meeting once she had halted them when they were trying to climb the stairs, Sirius had stared at her with utter disbelief, and Gabrielle had suggested, with her limited English skill, that Mrs Podmore should shove her mousetraps in her _derrière_.

The Pakistani couple, in their part, spent half of their present-day time (Sirius wasn't a stalker, he just assumed) at their respective parents', since the woman, Noreen, was heavily pregnant and the bloke, Jawaid, honestly seemed to know nothing about anything. Even though it seemed that the baby wasn't due just yet, Sirius had mused with the thought that if Noreen was to go in labour with only her husband present, the hubby might make her a dish of _Balti gosht _with a family recipe instead of taking her to the hospital. But in good conscience, Sirius enjoyed the couple's company and wished them all happiness, considering how they were at some other place rather than listening to Mrs Podmore's lectures on how her sleeping schedule "from the better times" was to go completely higgledy-piggledy when the baby would arrive in the building.

The top apartments on the third floor were conjoined as a one big flat, over which the posterity of a deceased, older musician was fighting for, so no one lived there at the moment. Sirius had talked to one of the sons when they had visited the place the first time since their father's death, and had got an impression that none of the siblings, half-siblings or ex-wives wanted to give the flat and the possessions in it to the 18-year-old wife of the musician, who had married the man five weeks before his arteries decided to pop and who already had two beach houses in Spain and Florida. The son had said, in a very inattentive voice, that it had been the first time the family and its former members had reached such a consensus that quickly, regardless of the fact that some of them had no saying in the business at all.

Once, about three months prior to the Tuesday (later known as _that fucking day_), when Sirius was lying in his bed, alone and waiting for sleep, he had been almost certain he could hear the bloodthirsty ghost of the dead man moaning upstairs, protesting about the shit that was going through in his apartment and banging the walls in a fashion so it was nearly impossible for Sirius to sleep – and just when he had been about to open his flat door to go, you know, Nancy Drew on the sodding place, Sirius had realised that the ghost had been none other than his neighbour Gabrielle's then-new beau Ralph, who had just been a tad loud.

So if Sirius _really_ thought about it, with all the flaws and whatnot, the place was rather ideal to live in. No noisy neighbours (to some extent) and no ghosts? If he had seen an ad about a room in that place, he really would have been sold by the simple look of the exterior of the building. The ghostlessness was just a sheer extra.

Now, back to the aforementioned Tuesday.

When the first interested person had showed up in the morning of _that fucking day_, knocking on Sirius' door at 7.15am and insisting through the four locks on it that they positively needed to come inside to take a good look of that extra room, Sirius had simply thought it was a prank his best mate was trying to convey on him. Hence, naturally, being merely covered by the pants he had in his hand, which then was positioned wisely in front of his crotch (of course he wasn't wearing them, who would at 7.15a-fucking-m), he had unlocked the door for the unbelievably squeaky bloke, whose voice Sirius' hangover brain did not exaggerate _at all_, and had asked, "What in a bloody fuck do you want?"

The gentleman, a respectable bank accountant, by the way, had then taken in the sight of the dimly lit flat (it probably should be mentioned that his eyes travelled to the room from Sirius' nakedness rather quickly). A retelling of this scene might say that the used and unused clothes dangling from the retro-ish furniture, the easels and dirty dishes, the finished and unfinished paintings, the empty wine bottles and smelly pizza boxes on the floor, and especially that bare-arsed bloke sleeping on the king bed positioned next to one of the large living room windows, had been, quite frankly, enough for the accountant to count, making him run from the door whilst muttering something about a painter's sex dungeon under his shrill breath, and vouch that he would _never_ visit this part of the city again.

"You mean the central?" Sirius had shouted at the man's receding back on the stairs. "Good luck with that!"

Shaking his head at the incident, he had stood naked in the landing of his floor for a few seconds, eyeing the surroundings as though they might offer him some kind of an explanation, and soon enough, he had seen a rumbled piece of paper, which had fallen from the sweaty hand of the man (who was unquestionably making a Guinness World record by being the first accountant in 60 years to run that fucking fast), and after reading it sotto voce, Sirius had understood exactly what the bloody hell had _that_ been about.

_Flatmate wanted – f/m, a 18-30. No smoking, no drinking. For info, call _–

Then there had been, of course, the inaccurate address (Sirius' address) and the real phone contacts (not Sirius' number), so naturally he hadn't got any messages the previous day relating to the first possible viewer's tight morning schedule and how he was utterly thrilled to be viewing a room in a flat that wasn't as corrupted as the rest of the shoddy world. Come to think of it, Sirius had pondered in his mind as he had taken a look of his flat from the door, the bloke's reaction to his _painter_ _sex dungeon_ was quite well-deserved.

He had rumbled the paper in his palm, pushed the door shut and locked it, after which he had tossed the paper into his bin, meaning that he had thrown it into a pile of other shit next to the flat door. Then, yawning helplessly, he had stridden back to his messy bed and under the warm arm of the mediocre shag of the previous night, wanting to forget the episode of the wrong address as quickly as possible.

The horror had continued at 10am.

Sirius had briskly woken up from his slumber (or if one might call it that when he was merely trying his hardest not to be bothered by the erratic snoring of the man in his bed) when Gabrielle from his neighbouring flat had yet again managed to burn her morning omelette to the extent that her fire extinguisher was not enough to save the building anymore, and as usual, she had sent for the fire brigade to save their petty lives. Sirius had reckoned that at this point, the only thing she needed to do was to call 999 and say her name, and the people on the line would know exactly how to proceed from there.

Furthermore, as if the ruckus coming from the staircase after the fire brigade arrived hadn't already been enough, Gabrielle had then banged Sirius' door, shouting, "_Au feu! Sirius, mon ami! Au feu!"_ which had functioned as the man's alarm sound about the time they had been living as neighbours (three years). Feeling like he should drown himself in the toilet, Sirius had got up, made himself a potful of nice, strong coffee, and leaning against the frame of the arch doorway separating the kitchen from the living room (as mentioned earlier, his bed wasn't in his bedroom), he had ruminated on the fact that, regarding occasional shags, he had absolutely no standards whatsoever, and he needed to get some sort of hang of his fucking life.

So, a good fifteen minutes later Sirius had then smacked the still-snoring library assistant – a heavy-duty sleeper – on his abovementioned bare arse with a kitchen skimmer he had found in his drawers, waking the bloke up and then ushering him out of the door by fabricating a vicious lie about his lethal landlady downstairs, who was just about to visit and who didn't have it in her to witness the irresponsible sex adventures of the shagadelic gay painter of the second floor. At all.

The library assistant had left, against his will really, and Sirius had closed the door again, and after locking it, he had leant his back against it, thanking the Almighty Picasso he actually owned his flat instead of just renting it.

It had been pretty much then when there had been another knock on his door.

At first he had been sure it was going to be the library guy again, coming back to collect his phone or his shoes, or whatever, but it wasn't – neither was it any of the firemen (whom Sirius had sadly noticed to be nothing of his type as he had stopped Gabrielle from bashing his door in) – but in front of him was a tall, heavy-built woman in her thirties and in different kinds of thick woollen clothes, bowing to him and stretching her humongous hand at his face at the same time.

It should be brought up that by the time this was happening, Sirius wasn't naked anymore. He had realised that it was going to be a laundry Tuesday since he had nothing normal to wear in his clothes cupboard in his bedroom; that said, he had wrapped his dirty hair in a scarf, and had put on one of his dirty painting t-shirts (the shirt hadn't a picture of any of his painting, it was splashed with dots because of his comically swift hands) and the never-worn, conserved pair of stripe harem chinos from Oak's, hoping that the second he would have a reason to leave the flat that day, he would have some other trousers to wear. He really didn't want to ruin his babies.

So, with his attire, he felt like a clown in front of the gigantic, black-clad woman. Moreover, it was noteworthy that Sirius was rather a tall man (6ft1, yet he seemed longer being as skinny as he was), but even he felt himself shrinking before the woman, who just a second ago had told him that she was from... "Excuse me, where?"

"Hungary," she said with a bold accent and kept her beady eyes on Sirius.

Sirius nodded, crossing his arms on his chest, and staying put in his doorway. He tilted his head to see behind the woman – nothing. Somewhere in the back of his mind he had hoped that there would have been a patrol of bobbies on her tail, waiting for a chance to jump forward with an enormous fishing net. Sirius smiled tensely at her. "Is it nice there during this time of year?" It was the latter half of August.

"I come here," the woman told him, obviously ignoring his considerate question. Sirius blinked at her lazily. He had tried to become more selfless, more thoughtful of other people, and this was the thanks he got with his altruistic efforts? Inattention? Fuck this. He made a sour face and wished from the bottom of his black heart that the woman _hadn't_ come there to tell him her family's secret recipe for the world's greatest _halászlé_. Not that he wouldn't appreciate it, but he was a shitty cook. "My name –"

"Sorry," Sirius interrupted hastily, lifting a hand in the air between them. Be nice. "You're looking for the room for rent?"

She nodded, her chin jiggling under her scarf. "Yes."

"Sorry," Sirius said again and frowned at himself. It was only a quarter past 10am and he had already said sorry twice? What was this laundry day of his becoming? He flashed an apologetic smile at the... er, lady. "There was a mistake with the magazine. It's not me who put up the ad, sorry." Third time! His jaw clenched as he pressed his mouth shut. What the fuck? He was an Englishman and all that, sure, but he did not apologise for nothing.

The woman rustled her clothes for a second or two, and during that life-changing moment Sirius thought he was going to see another arse; it probably wasn't going to be as firm and domestic as the one he had slept the previous night with, but a lot more Hungarian – and with that thought, watching her, Sirius tried to swallow his evident discomfort away. However, he didn't see an arse, thank heavens, for the woman only pulled an entire page (which she had obviously torn from the newspaper) from her breast pocket, slamming it in Sirius' face.

"Your ad."

Sirius shook his head, pushing the ad down and taking a step backwards into his flat. "_Not_ my ad."

She followed him, slowly and demandingly. "You put ad, I come here –"

Shit. Where were Gabrielle and her magnificent WWE inspired submission holds now when Sirius needed them? They were always there when he _didn't_ need them. Gradually and extremely late he realised that she had left for work already, otherwise she would have pinned the dread down already. Sirius really had to deal with this himself, without Gabrielle's French Hell's Gate (which he knew better than one might expect; the woman did not appreciate criticism). So, what does a proper man do when facing a problem such as this Hungarian dragon?

Sirius shook his head faintly and laughed nervously. "Sorry. I don't want a flatmate. Never wanted one, never will. I want to live alone. Sorry." He frowned at himself again, and then he comprehended that this was going to be the worst Tuesday ever; he had said sorry five times, he had _frowned_ twice within three bloody minutes – he never frowns! – and there was a woman sized of an Eastern European grizzly bear rolling towards him in a rather bloodcurdling fashion. "Ma'am, please try the next building. I'm sure it's that elderly woman who's looking for a lodger again. She has wanted _me_ to move in with her for some time now."

"Your ad –"

Somehow, but not going to the depths of how indeed, Sirius managed to run behind his door, push it close before the bruin followed him inside, and after securing the door with the four locks he had on it – not paranoid, taking precautions – he leant his forehead against the wood, hollering to the shouting woman in the stairhead, "Yes, yes, the folk music of your beloved homeland is fucking tremendous, I assure you, ma'am, but you're not going to sleep with my paintings! They need privacy!"

"_No! Your ad!_"

"It's not my fucking ad!" Sirius bellowed back, wishing his neighbours (mainly Mrs Podmore since she was the only there presently) had deafened during the night. He winced at that notion; let's just say it wasn't the first time someone was shouting behind his door about _an ad_. Sirius had just managed to clear the circulating rumours and convince the few people in his building that he wasn't a sex worker, neither was he a professional gambler, and now this godforsaken woman... He took an empty wine bottle from the floor and waved it towards the door as if the woman would see it and might run away. "Fuck off, or I'm going to call the official authority! The police, yeah? They'll show you how England is truly like!"

Was it the threat with the bottle of the long-gone Merlot or the people who might have been able to fling her out of the country that made the woman stop yelling, Sirius wasn't sure, but when he took a careful glimpse out of the peephole of his door a few seconds later, she was gone.

A fast runner.

He sighed heavily, lowering himself and the bottle on the floor, in a reclining position, and pretended to be a rug. "God save the Queen," he breathed to the dust.

The same situation repeated itself about four or five more times, Sirius wasn't keeping count. Not with gigantic, Hungarian women, however, but with different kind of folk; blokes and birds, barely 18 or more of his age, all insisting that this was the place the ad had mentioned and that Sirius was surely wrong when he told them to piss off, _you are in the wrong fucking place_. As if he would put up an ad of a room for rent and then intentionally fill the said room with his paintings. Fucking morons. Yeah, sure, he had a two bedroom flat, but one of the rooms was intended as a workplace where he could paint, and the other one was meant to be a storage room for the (finished) paintings, so in all honesty, there certainly wasn't any breathing space for a shoddy lodger.

No one was going to mention how ridiculously impractical it, in fact, was, the way he had moved his bed into his living room so there would be more space for his pictures in his _two bedrooms_. The pictures were undeniably running the household.

"They're paintings," Sirius said flatly to a young man, who was intently gazing towards a portrait of a frog-like woman in pink tweed outfit. They were standing in Sirius' living room, the man his nose in the drying painting and Sirius behind him, arms crossed on his chest. Why had he let the man in? He wasn't sure, and he was definitely questioning himself now when the bloke moved his hands on each sides of the easel in which Sirius' precious painting was hanging. The painting in question wasn't really his pride, but it was his child nevertheless. "They're not pictures, they're called paintings. I've painted them with paint."

"Uh-uh," the young man said, moving even closer to the somewhat wet surface, sniffling it with a stupid grin on his face.

Hell no. Sirius' eye twitched. "Are you sniffing it?"

The bloke turned around, the tip of his nose all green and pink and his eyes dazed as he tried to fixate them on the painter. He let out an intoxicated croak, which Sirius interpreted as "Good fumes, man."

"Out," Sirius said, and oddly enough, the boy was rather easy to lob from the door. Maybe he was that doped already – which was peculiar, since Sirius had never considered his paints to be this miasmatic.

Well, a few years back he had painted two days straight with the power of five Pinot noir, and as his painting of a vastly expressionist flaming phoenix had been somewhat finished, his inspiration had lingered. Thus, he had grabbed his red spray paint bottle from his cabinet, and after trying to find a perfect canvas for his next masterpiece, he had cleared his living room wall and had emptied the entire spray paint can on it. After that, he had fallen asleep on the rug at the end of his bed, for climbing onto that said bed had evidently been too much for him to handle.

Once he had woken up thirteen hours later with the most heinous headache ever – had it been the outcome of his excessive wining, the paint fumes he had breathed for a good 48 hours, or the position in which he had slept the next 13 (his face mushed against the back panel of his sofa and his limbs tangled, making him seem a crippled spider) – he had seen the chef d'œuvre on his living room wall; a humongous, grotesque cock with angelic wings, soaring over a rainbow and, evidently, carrying a bucket with more dicks in it. Dicks with happy faces and pearls around their shafts. Pearls alarmingly identical to those which Sirius' mother wore.

He had stared at his work of art with bloodshot eyes and had decided, then and there, that he should proceed on using painting knives or a bit less toxic solvents if he was to stick with his brushes. Also, he had decided to call his best mate James, who had then dropped him off to a hardware store to get some wall paint after a drone of a lesson on why Sirius shouldn't wine and end up sleeping on his floor only two weeks after he had been in a frigging hospital. Sirius, determined to get his mate stop whining, had told James that if he really wanted an example of a painter getting struck by inspiration, he should talk to his wife, who, similarly to Sirius, in fact was a painter and James' wife because Sirius had introduced her to him. After concluding this non-personal argument with an "Inspiration does not ask if your ribs are still fractured, James," Sirius had realised that his own work of art on words had been _so_ emotionally incisive that it was necessary for him to start crying, leading his friend to huff next to him and suspect a vomit-inducing concussion.

After that Sirius had honestly lessened his drinking, but whenever he got inspired, of course he needed some sort of juice to keep the flow going. Nevertheless, he had learnt to keep his window open, even though he started painting without solvents – he was never again going to have that bad hangover ever again.

Never.

Later on that Tuesday when he was alone once again, Sirius had taken a better look of his place, and had thought that maybe he actually should clean up a bit. If people saw from the door what the place looked like and if people such as a fucking _paint sniffer_ found the flat becoming, then Sirius should blame himself. There had been one bird (a blonde with a distressingly dazed expression and a ridiculous name like Lulu or Lune), who had asked if paying the rent in kind was an option before even seeing the place. Catching sight on Sirius at the door had evidently been enough to convince her that he should have definitely been her lessor.

Trying his hardest to draw some sort of breath with her tits squished on his face (heels), Sirius had managed to tell the barely legal woman that he did not want a flatmate, however tightly in-his-face and huge their boobs were. Especially _not_ then. Yet, as the girl had seemed to be rather hard to assure on the aforementioned fact, Sirius had been forced to pull out the big guns; and, with a smirk, he had told the girl that if his dick was going to be in anyone, they were going to have balls themselves.

The chick had slapped him with the newest version of _Top of the Pops_.

So, by the time it was four in the afternoon of that particular fucking Tuesday, Sirius had had enough.

For some odd arse reason, he really didn't consider himself as someone who loved people. He didn't, and he didn't have any problems admitting it. That was one of the few things he actually liked about himself.

When someone knocked on the door the last time that day, he had just finished washing up the last of the plates he had found from the flat (treasure hunting – he rewarded himself with a sip from a wine glass for every kitchen utensil he managed to find) and was utterly bushed. Not that anyone would ask him, but he was also teeny-weeny tipsy. He had even hoovered, which he _never_ does, after which he had mopped the entire place, thinking that maybe he should do that more frequently than once in every three months, pondering the possibility of the whole cleaning thing being rather therapeutic, most certainly – but after an effective five minutes of actually moving the wet mop around, he had realised that the only thing relaxing had been _Blonde on Blonde _on repeat he had popped on previously.

However, in the end, even though he complained, he had indeed cleaned the whole flat. He had also done half of the laundry, and had, even in the hecticness of his life, got time for himself to change out of his lovely harem trousers, thus securing them in his closet, making sure that nothing was to ruin them. By the time he was crawling on all fours on the living room floor, trying to find plates from under his sofa, he was already wearing a pair of worn-out jeans with tears on his knees. His ridiculous zebra-trousers were safe.

So.

Just when he was hanging the last of the now-clean plates on the draining board in the kitchen (a real man hasn't a dishwasher), the flat door instigated that someone was behind it, _again_, wanting to come in, in the middle of the fifth replay of the last song on the album.

And Sirius was ready to declare a war.

He took a deep breath, drying the last drops of dish water from his hands on a kitchen towel, and walked to the living room and calmly turned his iPod and Bob off. Trying to find a meditative state of mind, he almost tripped on the step that split the living room in half, but like a graceful ballet dancer he managed to steady himself on his feet – an important skill if one wanted to stay handsome. One of his art school professors had a nose which had broken a few times too many and Sirius did not want to end up looking like that old geezer. His nose had already broken once and he wanted to keep it the way it was.

Getting ready to, politely, start a mature conversation about the likelihood of human-made errors in the press industry, Sirius strode towards the flat door, but the closer he got the more he wanted to start the chat by hollering obscenities in his botherer's stupid fucking face.

His unnatural serenity vanished more and more with each lock he opened, and his jaw was already clenching unmanageably when he unlocked the last one with his angry fingers, pulling the door open. If truth was to be told, he actually wished he would have had an axe to emphasise his next words. "There's no room for –" he irately started, but his sentence had a severe heart attack.

Sirius blinked.

"Sorry, but were you listening to _Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands?_" a young man, about Sirius' age – meaning he was more than 20 but less than 30 – asked, smiling brightly and straight at him despite the fact that he seemed to be absolutely drenched. Had it been raining? Sirius opened his mouth lazily as he was going to say something, but keeping his eyes on Sirius the man shook his head faintly and hurried, "Not that I stood here listening! I just happened to hear Dylan's distinct voice through the door." He smiled carefully at Sirius, who was certain he had breathed too much of the cleanser fumes; there was no other explanation why an angel would be standing in front of him. Had he died? Had Bob's been the last voice he had heard? "If you don't mind me saying, this is actually one of my favourite songs of his. Even in its sadness, it's quite soothing."

Sirius needed soothing at that moment.

The man's eyes twinkled in a way Sirius had never seen before with anyone. Made total sense. After all, they belonged to a heavenly creature. Did the guy have wings under his wet jacket? "Personally, I enjoy Dylan's albums from the 60s the most. Most notably _Highway 61_, which, even though I enjoy his acoustic material, has stayed as my favourite album. I don't know why that is, but I'm not complaining." He flashed a huge smile. "_Blonde_ is a great successor."

The left corner of Sirius' mouth curved upwards a bit, yet otherwise he did not seem if he had heard the man at all. Which was rather accurate. He was busy staring.

And yes, as he merely gaped at the guy as a reply, the man turned his shockingly light brown eyes on the phone he had in his hand. A few droplets of water dripped from his hair onto his hand. "Also, I was certain I wrote the address right, but I might have made a wee mistake..." Sirius watched him lightly move his index finger on the screen. "I have a habit of making those."

So he had written the address down? Gradually smiling a tad wider, Sirius realised none of the earlier people had given into the chance of their own blunder. They had always attacked him.

With a slight frown, the man lifted his eyes to Sirius. "I'm sorry, I'm being rude here, but do you even speak English? Or am I too brash? _Parlez-vous anglais_?"

Sirius said sluggishly, "Yeah, no. I speak English." How was he able to construct anything else when he was facing someone looking like that? Instead of speaking English, he maybe would have wanted to whack the man with a club like a caveman and haul him into his cave of a flat as a signal to other people that _he was Sirius'_. Hands off.

"I'm so sorry," the man said with a nervous smile, keeping his eyes on Sirius, who, by the way, was gathering a comprehensive list on how incredibly compatible they were. Their heights? Almost identical, check. Really, it was the only thing that mattered at that exact second, since it meant that Sirius wouldn't have needed to do anything but lean straight forward if he wanted to kiss the man. "I tend to babble rather a lot when I'm nervous, my apologies. Must have given a quite an impersonation of Raymond Babbitt there." He turned his eyes into his hands. "Good job, me."

How fucking adorable. At some point Sirius' faint smile had turned into a full-on grin. "You're looking for a room?"

Suddenly a similar smile was plastered on the man's lips, making it rather difficult for Sirius to breathe. The guy was _that_ striking. "Yes," he said, blinking hurriedly. "I really am."

Behind every beautiful thing, there's some kind of pain. Sirius pushed Bob away and gestured to the bloke to enter the flat. "Er, please. Come in."

"Cheers." The man took a step past him, and as he entered the flat further, Sirius pushed the door close (not locking a single lock) and turned around. He nailed his eyes on the bloke's backside. Nice one... No, a great one! Breathtaking even? Scottish _and_ callipygian. He grinned even more widely, alarmingly starting to resemble the Cheshire Cat.

Sirius did not lick his lips at the sight.

Okay, maybe he did.

The man did a 180 after quickly taking in the visible space (you could see the entire flat from the door, except the kitchen, which was behind a corner on the right, and the bedrooms, which were on the left. The bathroom door was opposite the flat door), and fixed his eyes on Sirius, but to Sirius' misfortune, he quickly passed them again on to the phone he had in his hand. He clicked something on it, shoved it gently into his trouser pocket, and faced Sirius again, boring his incredible eyes deep into his skull. "So, you still do have a vacant room, then?"

"Yes," Sirius said immediately without thinking about anything but the fact that he might get _this man_ to live with him – mulling this brain-melting thought over, he tried to sound as professional as it was humanly possible for him whilst he was practically eye-fucking the said bloke in front of him. Never had he had a similar urge to run his hands through anyone's hair, but that light brown tuft... Holy fucking hell and a cowbell dipped in chocolate. How was a face like that even possible? And just how was the rest? Sirius really wanted to know. "I sure do," he said with a faint smile, which did _not_, in any way, resemble that crazy-arse smirk he had worn a moment ago. "It's as vacant as vacant can be. Very, absolutely vacant. Completely unoccupied."

"I thought I heard you say you don't," the man quickly noted with a small smile of his own. He tilted his head a bit to the side, letting his longish blowback hair pop with it. Sirius tried not to blink too much, as it might have revealed his strange desire to snuggle into those slight curls; they looked as though they smelled like ink and strawberry foam, and wasn't Sirius just fine with that. "Sorry, and I don't try to be harsh, but I wish not to waste any time, for I need a room as quickly as possible. I have already seen a few places, and there are few more to check, still, if –"

"I have a room for you," Sirius told him again, oddly calmly, in fact, and not at all fixating his eyes on the man's glistening lips. The bloke kept licking them, as though he was a tad uneasy – which he probably was, for his eyes darted constantly from one place to another. How very cute. Sirius died to know would he maybe concrete those eyes on Sirius' as they did the whimper-inducing horizontal mambo. "And it's a large one. I'm sure you will love it." Sirius swallowed forcefully. "Your room. You will love your room."

"All right, Norman Bates." The guy frowned amusedly, and popped his thumb over his shoulder, pointing towards the living room. "But is it wise to be renting a room if you are yourself sleeping in your living room?"

Sirius slowly started to amble towards the man, and as equally slowly he came to understand what was so frigging intriguing about him; even though the man seemed to be as any other Briton with his incessant apologies while being awfully cheeky, to Sirius he didn't seem at all British.

What was that about, Sirius wanted to know.

The fact that he didn't already know the bloke from head to toe made him want to drown himself in the toilet. Not exaggerating at all, Sirius had already forgotten what his life was before he met this man.

Sirius gestured towards the bloke with his hands, offering to take his dark grey jacket off. "Raining?"

"Cats and dogs," the guy said whilst nodding and removed his still slightly wet jacket. Sirius watched anything but his eyelashes, or the light freckles on his nose – and in no way possible was he staring at the ridiculous dimples on the man's cheeks as he kept smiling. Or his arms. Or the fucking fact that he was wearing a black tee under the aforementioned _wet_ jacket. "So, the bed?"

"I use the first bedroom as my workstation," Sirius told him as casually as possible whilst he took a coat hanger from the cupboard close to the flat door. He hung the jacket on the doorknob.

He also might have taken a quick eyeful of himself from the cupboard mirror-door, happily noting that he could be looking a lot worse, indeed – he could have opened the door naked, his cock in his hand, just as that morning. "Makes sense to me that I sleep in the living room." He grinned at his reflection and turned to the man, witnessing him ruffle his hair. "The bedroom has a better lighting for, you know, working."

The man nodded at him shrewdly. "A decent lightning is usually necessary for success. Especially fluorescent or UV lights, if you are working with plants." He slightly tilted his head and nailed his eyes on Sirius'. "Is there a White Castle nearby?"

Sirius stared at him back. "I don't grow weed if that's what you're asking."

"Oh, good." The man beamed at him. "One of my uni mates had a proper Cheech & Chong thing going on, which didn't... work out that well for him later. Have you lived here long?"

What in the shit? How could anyone be that endearing? Also what year was it? Sirius counted quickly. "About ten years. Good neighbourhood for fox hunting." What? He nodded and tried not to stare at the bloke. "You want a tour around the flat?" Or in Sirius' pants.

"That'd be nice, thanks."

The brilliant sightsee started as Sirius opened the bathroom door right next to him. He flicked the light on and gesticulated at the room. The sink was near the door, the toilet being next to it. The tub shower combo was against the back wall. Sirius even had his own washing machine. "The palace of relief. Amongst our kingdom also known as the loo. Try to ignore the pile of clothing on the floor."

The man stared at the bathroom. "A clawfoot tub?" His eyes met with Sirius'. "Are you kidding me?"

"No," Sirius told him, smiling a bit at the bafflement showing on the bloke's face. "It was here when I moved in. Don't blame me."

"Is this a real place?" the man asked him with excitement gleaming in his eyes. He was standing next to Sirius, very closely and grabbing the doorframe. Sirius was battling himself so he wouldn't lean closer and _smell_ the guy. "Tell me, where have you hidden Mr Tumnus?"

Sniggering a bit, Sirius mumbled, "Er, sorry. It's only me and my slightly less hairy legs here." He sighed dramatically. "Sorry, I'm not good with jokes. Knock-knocks I can handle."

"Knock-knocks are funny," the guy said, and laughed. "Especially if one can somehow include TARDIS in them." He squinted. "Like, knock-knock. Who's there? Doctor. Doctor Who? Oh, sorry, never mind – I thought you weren't home, so I decided to pop in ancient Egypt instead."

His what? Where? They could play doctor together.

"Or not," the man muttered as Sirius just kept staring at him like a hungry puppy stares at an ice cream. "Sorry. Apparently I'm not that good with jokes either." He turned his eyes from Sirius' puzzled face towards the bathroom. "How's the plumbing? When's the last time you had problems with the DWV?"

"Yeah, er... It's all right." How the fuck should Sirius know how's the plumbing. What in the fuck is DWV? He doesn't know that and he's not going to, so he needs a man who knows the bloody plumbing. Perhaps this guy liked to clean his pipes? If not, Sirius could gladly be in assistance. One can always hope. "You fancy see the kitchen?"

"Oh yes, thank you. I saw a few other places, and all they were offering was a kitchenette." They walked past the living room and Sirius' bed. The guy smiled as his head twirled around like that of an owl's. "If you don't mind me saying, this place gets nicer and nicer." They reached the kitchen, and his smile widened still. His eyes wandered from one indigo wall to a white one and from there to the dark cupboards. "I really enjoy the décor. I'm not a huge fan of interior designing, but I'm truly amazed."

So was Sirius. "Yeah, well," he said, and patted his flame red Gorenje refrigerator. He watched the man's eyes wander from one place to another in the kitchen and stop at Sirius' cheap copy of _the Gate_ by Hans Hofmann on the fridge door. "All this retro stuff is here because of someone else, so... I've had very little doing with them."

The man watched him with a bright smile. "Having your flat in retro is very common these days, but you haven't just slapped everything together." He eyed the place again. "There's a certain thread going on here, and it's connecting the space. You've clearly thought everything through."

What? Sirius hadn't thought anything. No... lie, wait, he had! Many times he had pondered the shortest distant to carry his wine from the kitchen to his bed, therefore the current interval between those places was rather short. A thoroughly thought thing. "Yeah, having... threads around is very important. Kind of like shoes, you know? Unless you're a hobbit and you go about barefoot."

"I wouldn't go Frodo at this weather," the man said with a knowledgeable smirk. As Sirius merely stared at him again, so the guy pushed on with, "You don't have a dishwasher?"

"No," Sirius managed as he shook his head. "In actuality, I like doing the dishes. It's kind of relaxing." More than other cleaning, at least. "I've never in fact even thought about buying a dishwasher. It's never been an issue before."

"It's not an issue." The man eyed the place and Sirius tried his hardest not to stare at the way he brought his lower lip between his teeth, munching it as he spoke. "I love cooking, but I'm rather bad with dishes."

To be absolutely honest, Sirius almost asked him if he needed any help with the fucking lip. However, he pushed the thought to the back of his mind and smiled cordially. As it was stated earlier, Sirius was a shitty cook as all he managed to prepare was a sandwich and pour his beer into a pint. So, really, living with this man if he could cook? A heaven. Sirius almost said that this fact almost made them inseparable, but instead he let out, "You want to see the living room?"

"Sure," the man answered as he moved to the living room. He craned his neck a bit to see out from one of the windows. He turned his smile to Sirius. "I mean, I saw it from the front door, but I could use some further investigation."

Sirius might have used some further investigation in the guy's pants.

"Forgive me asking, but are you a painter?" the man asked him as they moved slowly towards the sofa. Sirius absolutely _had to_ walk before him so he wouldn't drool on his back – as he had watched him reveal his tight-fitting black t-shirt and his heavenly arms from under the jacket, Sirius had honestly thought he was going to have a severe nosebleed. Thank Picasso, he had averted his thoughts to his mother. "All these paintings kind of suggest something along the line."

As they reached Sirius' Richmond 3-seater, the man cocked his head a bit at the sight of the living room table being overflown with empty wine and beer bottles, but he didn't say anything about them. He sat languidly beside Sirius on the sofa.

Why did Sirius feel as though he was on a date? Not that he minded the feeling, but he could have been wearing something a little bit more snazzy than his painting/cleaning gear (like his fucking zebra trousers, for example; taking them off seemed like the biggest mistake of the century now). Sirius felt as though he was at a job interview in fucking Oymyakon, Siberia, and was badly underdressed, considering both the situation and the cold-arse weather.

The man sitting next to him, on the other hand; he looked very smart with his black outfit – no, not smart. Absolutely and outrageously gorgeous. He seemed amazingly confident about himself (meaning he was incredibly self-assured without his clothes, as well, or so Sirius hoped), yet not in a pretentious way. He seemed confident, but Sirius was almost certain that if someone was to mention it to him, the guy might apologise with a smirk.

Sirius was unusually self-confident himself, but sometimes people took appearances too seriously. Being dressed as he was at that moment, he only wished the guy wasn't too shallow what came to first impressions via outer shell. Also, Sirius really hoped that he would have showered that day.

Furthermore, he _might_ have had a wish that he just could stick his eager tongue in the guy's throat without hesitating one bit, but no one should be mentioning that. He tucked it safe in his mind with the fact that he really just wanted to see the man before him naked.

"I try to be," Sirius answered the bloke's question with a suave grin. No, do not flirt, he noted his brain. All right. Don't chat up with the most stunning man his eyes have ever beheld? Should be easy! "I just haven't had the exact right model yet to make a masterpiece." He leant closer to the man and winked lewdly – making the man raise his brows questioningly at him. Seeing that, Sirius' eyes widened considerably, and he cleared his throat, pressing his back against the sofa. Fuck. "I mean, I paint abstract fruit platters and..." He shook his head a bit. Shit. "Shit." Then he exhaled heavily, his earlier grin turning into a frown and his eyes to his own lap. "I don't... I don't actually paint shit."

Idiot, concentrate.

The man seemed terribly entertained with Sirius' mental fumbling. "Are you all right?"

If you'd be so kind, now show the reason why you are called _the brain_. Sirius narrowed his eyes as he brought a hand to his temple. "Yeah, just a... bit of a hangover, that's all. I already mended it with red wine, though. Should be fine."

Now nodding glumly to himself, the man asked, "So, there is drinking in the flat?" He carefully took one large bottle from the edge of the table, one with an etiquette saying Pétrus. He turned the bottle around in his hands, muttering, "I was kind of hoping these weren't yours, but that was a long shot." With an undeniably disappointed face, he returned the bottle to its friends, and then turned his piercing eyes to Sirius. "It's pretty much the aftermath of _Sideways _here, so I should think otherwise."

Oh fuck, the ad? Sirius' frown deepened. If he remembered correctly, it said _no drinking_, right? Does that mean this guy doesn't drink? Crap. "No," Sirius hurried, scratching his scarf-clad head. What could he possibly say to make the bloke stay? That he had gathered all the visible bottles, which were on the table at that moment, from the flat, the first of them being the one he had emptied approximately six months ago, and that he had opened and shared the latest with the shag of the previous night? Hell no. "Those are my mate's, who's _extremely_ boozy," Sirius told the man with a sad nod. "My hangover's because I... I just binged on some..." He thought extremely hard. Well, think even harder! "Donuts." He watched the man gaze at him with raised brows again. What a fucking libidinous pair of brows they were, oh man. Sirius fluttered his eyelids heavily and muttered, "Insalubrious."

"You have a donut hangover?" the guy asked him, tilting his head a bit to the right. The tendons on his neck seemed as though they were trained to be lecherous, as well, in addition to his brows. They were working with the well-fitting black V-neck he had on and were straightforwardly trying to murder Sirius. He was _not_ staring.

"I only do that once in every ten years," Sirius said intelligently, hoping that he didn't seem as loony as he sounded to his own ears. How was this so fucking hard? He was merely having a friendly conversation with a man, who, in no way, was going to have sex with him, in any way. But there was something in this person that made Sirius wish _just that_.

Nope. Everything about the man was making Sirius utterly insane, and it had only been mere ten minutes since they met.

Things were going swimmingly.

He _wasn't_ now thinking about attacking the bloke out of the blue, no, ha-ha. He did not just want to rip his clothes off in a very barbarian manner, and then tip him on the bed behind the sofa, constantly kissing his skin and going straight at his –

"Well, then," the man said suddenly. "Could you show it to me, please?"

Sirius gulped. Show him what? "Sorry?" Goodness gracious, that was probably the tenth time he had said that already – however! This was a different kind of _sorry_, so it didn't count, right? Probably didn't. He closed his eyes half-way. "What do you want to see?"

"The room?" the man asked amusedly, and flashed him an awkward smile. He was staring at Sirius with _those_ eyes, those unequivocally gorgeous ones, which gave the idiom bedroom-eyes an utterly new meaning. "That's what I'm here for, aren't I?" He smiled. "I didn't come here for wine tasting."

Oh yeah. He wasn't there to have Sirius in sixteen different ways on the floor, either. Damn it. "Sure," Sirius said, slowly standing up from the sofa.

What didn't cross his mind at that point was that he indeed was using the said room (the one he earlier had called _completely unoccupied_) as a place for the finished paintings, and that he hadn't even tried to move them after placing them there, one after another, resting them against each other from the walls towards the centre – hence getting them out of the room was going to take some time. Why would he even have _thought_ about that? After he had been left alone, he had figured no one was going to use that room.

"This..." the man began, peering in the said, painting-filled room from the door. He craned his neck to see better, but all, in every logicality, he saw was psychedelic, colourful paintings of various subjects; all Sirius saw at that same moment was the guy's unbelievable neck right in front of him as he stood behind him. How he wanted to lick it... No, he didn't. Sirius blinked the thought away.

Indeed, initially he had started supporting the paintings against the walls of the room, but since the wall space had run out, he started the placing paintings over other paintings, filling the room from the walls towards the middle, which was now the size of mere square metre. Behind one layer of paintings was the window, which was naturally drawn shut. The man frowned at the sight of the room, and turned his eyes on Sirius.

"It's rather full, don't you think?"

"But," Sirius hurried, scampering in the room from the doorway – _not_ touching the bloke's bum on his way if someone was suspecting – and took the nearest, and by far the largest painting in the whole room and started yanking it out of there. "I was, er, planning on moving these... uh, to the balcony, so."

"Look, you don't have to do that," the guy then said quietly, halting Sirius by standing in his way and holding an immobilising hand in front of him. Oh, it immobilised him, all right; Sirius thought his heart was going to break because of the silly, inadvertent gesture, for he couldn't get rid of the thought of wanting to take a step forward so the hand would have touched his chest instead of hovering in the air. Watching Sirius and drawing the hand away, the bloke nodded uneasily. "This is a lovely place, but obviously you have use for the room." He brought his palms and fingers together in front of his chest as if he was Japanese. "Thank you for your time, but I think I should be going..."

"We haven't even discussed the rent," Sirius said suddenly, letting the painting fall on the floor from his grasp. He didn't even flinch at it when it thumped against the threshold. He didn't care for the blue, flying Ford Anglia in the least at the moment – not closely as much as he suddenly cared that the bloke before him would stay. "It's very cheap."

The guy took a step towards the entryway, shaking his head. "Cheers, really, but I don't want to be a bother. I thought the room would have been ready. I still have one other place to –"

"This is the cheapest room you can find in all London," Sirius told him, jumping in his way. Without thinking the boundaries of utter strangers, he took the man by his shoulders, intently staring at him in the eye. Now or never. Convince him to stay. "I am not kidding here. The renters can ask for anything because they know you have to pay it in order to have a place. The rents in the inner city are ridiculous." Somehow, Sirius surprised himself by saying something actually factual. "Except for mine. I own this flat, so I don't need a huge fee for the room."

Watching him back, the guy tried half-heartedly, "Are you sure it won't be a bother?"

"It's not. I assure you," Sirius pressed on, and let go off his shoulders, rather reluctantly, one might add. The man felt soft and brawny under his touch, making him_ want more_. Sirius didn't want to let this man go, not yet. He pondered if he had ever wanted anything else as badly as this before in his life. "I'll clean up the room, today, and you can move in tomorrow morning. Is that all right with you?"

"We haven't even discussed any terms." The man frowned slightly at Sirius' unyielding stance. At first Sirius thought that he hadn't good enough a reason to reassure the man to stay in the flat and that he would surely be leaving, but then he saw a small, encouraging smile dancing on the bloke's lips. "This could turn into _Animal House_ without them. You've got to have rules. They're very important. You have to tell your son to not have sex with an apple pie; if you don't, he might do just that."

Sirius had absolutely no fucking clue what the hell the man was talking about, but holy shit was he gorgeous. So... terms? Sirius stared at him, licking his lips again. He had never had a flatmate before; 'visitors', sure, but weren't flatmates different? They stayed in the house. It would become theirs as well, in a way, so naturally there should be restrictions and rules regarding the household, right? Maybe Sirius should just try to convince the man to become his boyfriend instead? That would have been nice, and _a lot_ easier. Only one bed. They could shower together, as well.

After a moment of thinking through the possible terms, he said, "Anything you put in the fridge is _ours, _unless you write your name on it. No shagging on the sofa, also the kitchen is a place in which you probably should keep your dick in your pants. If you Skype with someone, no alert sounds because, what I've learned, they are fucking annoying. I listen to music when I paint, I don't like animals that much, I'm pernickety but messy, and I smoke a lot when I'm irritated."

The man stared at him. "You smoke?"

"I smoke," Sirius repeated flatly. He couldn't say anything more that would keep the guy here. Unless if he had found out that the bloke had unconventional amounts of curiosity towards the paranormal, Sirius could have made up a lie about a ghostly apparition upstairs, one that was oozing terrible quantities of ectoplasm straight to his er... bed, yes, and that it had to be taken care of, _quickly_, by shagging on it. But as he didn't know that, he said instead, "The rent's 70 quid a month," and hoped for the best.

To that the guy said instantly, "Deal," and gave his hand to Sirius, who actually reckoned he had died from an alcoholic poisoning and had gone to... well, afterlife. This angel in front of him was taking, hopefully, care of him.

They shook hands like proper businessmen, if proper meant that one of them was evidently having weird fantasies about their life-together-to-be, under the same roof, sharing the bathroom and kitchen utensils – and the other was waiting to get his hand free, so he could use his phone.

Once Sirius had let go off the man (before he was to have a stroke), the bloke shoved his hand into his pocket and took out his phone. He activated the screen and turned his smile to Sirius. "Could you give me your digits, so I can call you tomorrow morning? I don't like barging in, uninvited."

Oh, barge in, please. Preferably when Sirius was in the shower. The bathroom lock was busted, should Sirius start with that? "Sure," he said instead and gave the man his phone number, all the while admiring the way his quick thumbs worked on the touchscreen. Suddenly the eyes – oh the eyes! – were on him again. Sirius gulped.

"How incredibly thoughtless of me!" the man unexpectedly cried. "I haven't even introduced myself, I was so engrossed by –" He stopped mid-sentence and grinned warmly. Engrossed by what? Sirius blinked, and the man continued after his pause, "I mean, this is a really nice apartment. The view is stunning." He gave his hand again to Sirius, who took it gladly in his own; he could keep touching that said hand forever, please, and then maybe move to touch other places, as well. _Maybe_. Also he noted himself how he had _always_ loved the view, never had he found it boring. The man beamed sincerely at him. "I'm Remus Lupin, apparently very impolite, as well as your new lodger."

What a name. Sirius smiled back at him. "Hello, Remus." He absolutely adored the way the name rolled on his tongue, and he almost said it again. How mental would he have seemed if he had actually done that. "I'm Sirius Black, your flatmate/lessor, at your humble service." Sirius bowed a little, thinking how he could service this man all night long, for the rest of his life, and he would never complain.

Remus' smile turned into a smirk. "Sirius Black. Is that a painter alias, or something?"

"It might be," Sirius said, and unwillingly let go of Remus' hand. His heart twisted in an odd way as Remus kept grinning at him. "But that's your job to find out." He cocked his head. "Would you like some tea?"

* * *

[Sent at 04.38pm] _I found a perfect place! I can move in tomorrow. So excited :)_

* * *

**A/N:** Let me know in the comments if you want to continue reading this. Cheers & bye, xoxo_  
_


	2. Chapter 2: Who's he when he's at home?

**A/N: **Hi! Sorry to keep you waiting, but I've been sort of busy and I've also tried to keep this story coherent by writing it all at once, so. I know, it's not nice to wait a story (especially if the wait is not worth it). This also took me longer to upload since I proofread it myself, which might make this a bit weaker than the first one, but I tried. In addition, it's a hell of a lot longer than it was originally, but I couldn't delete anything. Everything is there for a reason. (No one is allowed to mention foreshadowing...)

Thank you so much for your lovely comments, your likes and favourites, and I apologise my inactivity what comes to answering and replying to all the reviews. I should thank each and everyone of you one by one, but here's one big for you: THANK YOU DARLINGS.

You guys are the best. xoxo

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters. I don't own anything else mentioned in this story, except, well... the story?

**Beta: **no beta

* * *

**Day 2, Wednesday: Who's he when he's at home?**

As he had promised, Sirius had started emptying the room for Remus the exact second the guy had exited the building. Remus, in all sincerity, had wanted to stay for tea – or so he had said, with an awfully giddy grin and a light tilt of his head – but as fate would have it and to Sirius' absolute disappointment, he had also been in a hurry to get back to his own flat on the other side of the city to pack the rest of his stuff for the next day. For a man who had never wanted a flatmate before, Sirius had been somewhat confused to notice that he was already anticipating the said following day rather eagerly.

He had started missing the guy's voice as soon as they had said goodbye to each other. Just a bit.

After he had again been left alone in his apartment, which suddenly felt quite empty to be honest, only then had Sirius realised that he had to mop the floor again because the man of his dreams had trotted there in his wet shoes – yet oddly enough, Sirius did not mind at all. At the time he grabbed the mop again, his face was lit in a stupid grin and possible outsiders might have thought that the mop and him were best of friends.

Swiftly, and completely absorbed by his own strangely joyful thoughts, Sirius had then cleaned the second bedroom through and through, but only later had comprehended that _never_ before had he moved so fast from place A to place B in order to tidy up something.

Well, except that one time two years earlier when he was having a 48-hour sex affair with an Italian bloke called Firenze, who, while we're on the subject, had been hung like a bloody horse, and his homophobic mother had rung the buzzer at his door for the first time in her life. Then and there Sirius had used all his leftover energy, which wasn't that much thanks to the effusive amounts of shagging, to hide the breathing, half-naked evidence of his profligate, free-spirited lifestyle before his mother would see anything too revealing. It had been the first time Sirius was glad his mother had a slight case of acrophobia – she left the balcony alone during her inquisition. Also, it was the first as well as the last time Sirius ever had anything remotely relationship-y with someone whose knowledge of the English language consisted only of the words _yes_,_ no_, and_ sex_.

Furthermore, after his mother's sudden visit, Sirius had removed the batteries from his buzzer.

Sirius thought of himself as somewhat lucky since Remus wasn't a foreigner; all the same, he probably would have broken his own rule to stick only with British men at the immediate second had it turned out that the aforementioned bloke at his door was, in fact, an alien, for as it was stated before, Sirius had never before seen a man so peculiarly captivating as Remus was. He wasn't quite able to put his finger on it, the reason why exactly he was so immersed in thinking about the guy – because, honestly, Remus was _just_ a fucking guy – but he sure as hell wasn't going to complain.

Naturally someone might have protested by noting that the Scot probably wasn't as good-looking as he looked like (what) and that Sirius was merely exaggerating again (not). Admittedly, Sirius tended to do that a bit, the whole 'embellishing the truth on regular basis' thing, but not this time. No. Sirius was ready to tell the sceptics to shove their heads in their arses and shut the hell up for they clearly knew nothing about the study of beautifully enticing people from the gorgeous land of bagpipes.

As Sirius had spent the latter half of _that fucking day_ pondering whether his observation of the man's splendour was truly accurate, rather quickly he had come to the affirmative conclusion that yes, indeed it was: the only man, who had ever come to even close of being as outwardly striking as Remus was Rabastan, a 20-something handyman Sirius' mother had employed with a landscaper during his last summer living with his parents.

...Bloody fucker Rabastan, the exquisitely tanned and brawny French guy, who used to shovel earth to Sirius' mother's beds-to-be and who sometimes chose to wear nothing but his low-hanging pair of ragged jeans, had made a 16-year-old Sirius strangely interested spending all his time in the backyard, staring at the... flowers and the, er, butterflies. As Sirius' younger brother had subtly inquired him about his sudden, continuous activities outside (he was their mother's man Friday), Sirius had calmly pointed out that he had always cared deeply of the esthetical side of their mother's rose bushes and again had no fucking idea what Regulus was yammering about. Clearly the sweating Frenchy had had nothing to do with anything. Clearly. Despite Sirius' obviously flawless explanation, Regulus had just kept smirking at him in the same annoying manner as he always did.

Sirius had almost punched his brother, if _almost_ meant that he definitely had tried to do so with the aid of a shovel.

Although he had kind of wanted the Frenchman to pop his newly-confirmed gay cherry at the same age of aforementioned 16, obviously Sirius hadn't desired him enough even to learn French, and thus, Rabastan had left the house after the garden was finished and before the young boy had been able to voice his peculiar craving to ride the guy in the sunset while he would have demonstrated Sirius why exactly he was called a _handyman_. The fountain Sirius' mother had commissioned had got a lot better impression than Sirius had, regarding the callouses Rabastan had in his fingers. The horny teenager of sixteen had been extremely jealous of a marble swan.

Jokes aside, the French arsehat had been the first-ever man Sirius had wanted, and to him Rabastan (the Rude) was the one man to whom Sirius, though always unconsciously, compared other guys. Why? He wasn't entirely sure himself, but the bloke's most dominant trait was definitely something he unintentionally searched in men, meaning that during the last ten years of his life Sirius had only been dating utter twats; rough, haughty and abusive, occasionally both mentally _and_ physically. The sporadic shags of his most recent three years were not that different from the bunch, but then again, they never lingered long enough to strike.

Yeah, he hadn't been in real love in a very long time.

The biggest issue with his love life, his apparent inability to connect with a truly nice guy, was like a pest and Sirius would have needed a respiration filter to survive if he was going to dive in the self-loathing reasons he thought were behind it. Even mere scratching of the infected surface wasn't an option, since that always resulted in plunging straight into the depths of his dark mind, so, that said, he gladly left the subject to rot in peace and never spoke of it to anyone. Still, once when he had been slightly pissed, he had outlined a written promise to himself that he would talk about it with someone in the midst of an unwinnable zombie apocalypse: if a half-rotten, Cockney shop-assistant was to chew his face off and Sirius had no way of escaping his horrid, faceless destiny, _then_ he would admit that maybe he was a bit miserable with his current situation in the field of relationships and that he felt slightly scared of his future alone and _completely_ unloved, if slightly was a code word for 'if he ever saw a couple in the park where he doodled every weekend, he would have to suppress his oncoming tears and fake an incident with an invisible swarm of wasps, so that no one would mistake him for an unhappy, soppy man, who kind of wanted to find his soul mate, but was unquestionably bad at anything that had something to do with real relationships'.

However, if the topic of his sad love life was to surface before his imminent death and especially without his will, Sirius would feel compelled to attach it in a pile of C-4 at the construction site on the other side of the abovementioned park, hoping that a bunch of hungry cockroaches would munch on the remains and that no one would ever have to hear of the subject _ever_ again.

It didn't take that long for Sirius' thoughts to travel from their subject of zombie cockroaches back to a certain someone, who was going to live with him from the next day on; the speed of his cleaning increased into ferocious proportions and, once again, resulted in an achingly grinning autopilot, since his brain was unable to concentrate on more than just one sexy thing at a time. And, to put it bluntly, it was Remus who had indeed taken most of the 100% capacity, leaving just a small, petty gap for unkillable, face-eating insects and the dystopian world they would lead as kings in the near future, so honestly, Sirius hadn't any room to think of cleansers and marinated sock webs and dust on swimming trunks when there were sexy naked kings on six legs to think about.

No, wait. What was he thinking about again?

Anyway. In addition to moving the paintings out of the room and managing to relocate them all either into his own bedroom/workplace or in the attic space, Sirius had also gathered all the empty bottles from the living room table into bags, all the haphazard magazines he still had everywhere into cardboard boxes, and had hauled them out of the flat. Thankfully the recycling bank was near, so once he had been done with the trash, the whole cleaning operation of that Tuesday had not taken more than six hours, from start to finish, Remus-time not included.

As Sirius had eyed the utterly strange-looking flat from the door, he had reckoned the place could have passed as one in them IKEA catalogues. More or less.

He had felt like a winner, and Remus _had_ to feel like he belonged there.

Sirius had a plan, though, if Remus was going to complain about his living habitat: he would persuade the man to sit in one of his Finn Juhl's Pelican chairs in the living room, probably the cream white one, and then suddenly whip out a rope! Of course he had ropes lying about the flat, he was a painter. After he would have performed a few well-thought and rather persuasive dance moves a la Mick Jagger, he would tie Remus up (for naturally the man would be too enchanted to fight or even lift his arse from the chair) and then, Sirius would finish the job with the most seductive lap dance ever imagined, possibly even with a happy ending, leaving Remus over-joyous and ready to live in the place, absolutely without bitching.

That was Sirius' plan. No one was to talk about how incredibly stupid it was. Also the fact that Remus would probably just kick him in the balls did not exist.

Sirius was feeling victorious.

* * *

The feeling of being a champion faded straightaway as the very next morning was the most unpleasant one Sirius could have had.

Wednesday. He woke up at 9am sharp (from a very agreeable, Remus-filled dream, and to his real alarm sound instead of Gabrielle's screaming) in order to tidy up the rest of the flat. But what made the morning the most frightful one he had had in years was not the fact that he had actually woken up at his alarm sound, but an undeniable proof of a brain injury which manifested in the form of him, in fact, _setting _his alarm clock the previous night. It was, Sirius thought lethargically after he won the fight to silence his phone, rather upsetting.

Furthermore, as he inspected the place with his sleepy eyes, he was terribly surprised to see that it was already thoroughly cleaned. He squinted at the place, with a dry "What the fuck" on his tongue (and not exactly dashing out, but lingering there like a drunken tortoise). Naturally, he had also gone to bed with the grinning autopilot and hadn't realised that besides the scrubbing, mopping, and hollering at obscene strangers, Sirius had done absolutely nothing during the previous day.

Thinking about, er... someone naked and singing in his shower did not count.

So. He woke up that early in the morning without a proper reason, and did that just make him the happiest of men. Logically, to stay up and not be super-sleepy when Remus would call him around 11am – he had promised he would, so he was going to call, right? – Sirius loaded the coffeemaker and sat down by his kitchen table, and decided to proceed the already perfect fucking morning by staring at the indigo kitchen wall in front of him.

Needless to say, he fell asleep. A good two hours later his phone rang ceaselessly until he woke up from his slumber against the awfully comfortable oak table, and even though Simon & Garfunkel had got him up just the sufficient amount, Sirius was still too sleepy to saunter from the kitchen to the living room and over the rug at the end of his bed without almost tripping on it. Luckily for his nose he didn't, and once he had steadied himself enough to hold himself up on his wibbly-wobbly legs and just when Paul and Art had started moaning about bad news, bad news, Sirius snatched his phone from under his pillow where he had buried it, swept the screen with his thumb and pushed the phone against his ear.

He mumbled a groggy, "What."

His eyes drooped immediately back shut as he heard the voice on the other end of the line.

"Mother, I'm busy." Sirius yawned reflexively after hearing more of her aggravating voice and trudged towards the sofa next to him. Why was it that every time his mother started speaking to him, Sirius was overcome by an instantaneous feeling of sleep-deprivation? Odd, to say the least. Even stranger was how he always answered her calls. "No, I was sleeping, yeah? That's the thing during which you close your eyes and pretend you're dead, but you wouldn't know that, would you? Satan doesn't need sleep." He shook his head to no one. "In the kitchen. You know what, I'm expecting another call actually, so maybe I could just hang up? ...No? Okay."

He sat on the sofa of which back was resting against the step dividing the space, in a way that if one would have stood behind the couch, it would have seemed as though it was sinking into the floor. A fun and not at all important fact.

Sirius yawned again. "Fine. Just do it."

He tilted his head back against the cushion. Sirius realised it was going to be a long-arse day. After all, he was already listening to his mother's wails before noon.

Suddenly he groaned, "Oh for fuck's sake, what? It's not like that! No, I don't care. _No_." He brought his hand to his eyes and rubbed the closed lids tiredly. "That's right. You're right. Happy?" He opened his eyes and nodded to the same no one, letting his gaze wander from his living room furniture to the paintings and drawings above his television. He cringed slightly once he saw that his bum-ugly painting of a black dog covered in red drapes was still hanging on the wall, even though he had been meaning to take it down for ages. Such a waste of paint, that one. "I did that, yeah," Sirius compliantly told his mother. "And that." As his eyes travelled to a black-and-white whole body pencil portrait of himself above the dog, he yawned loudly, hoping his mother would realise how much Sirius didn't actually care about anything she was saying. He shook his head at the clock on the wall above the television. 11.03am. "No, _that_ I didn't do. Why would I do that?" He waited a second. "I know." His face twisted more with every syllable his mother let out. "_I know_. No. Look, honestly, I don't care about what they say. They're idiots, especially Bella. Mother, I – I – could you – _no_." He moved the phone in front of his face. "Hell needs their empress! Goodbye!"

Huffing, he ended the call and tossed the phone on the other end of the sofa. After glaring a stern fuck-you to the machine, he planned to dash up and move to tear the dog from the wall, but of course he hadn't even finished the thought when the New Yorkers began moaning next to him again. Sirius lunged after the phone, and as he lain there on his stomach, he swept the screen without looking at it and brought the phone to his ear, shouting, "Listen here! I am not giving anyone a blowjob at the moment, neither am I contracting syphilis! Is that really what you think I do all the time? Also, newsflash: I'm not riddled with AIDS, whatever she says! I've never even had an STD, I use condoms! You do know what they are, right? Really, it's _you_ who's making my life shorter with every single bloody phone call you make!" He inhaled hastily. "What do you want to hear me say, huh? That I enjoy shagging men? I do! I shag men and I love it! Deal with it!"

As he stopped shouting, Sirius heard strong coughing on the line, and suddenly he felt way too tired to keep the phone on his ear; he swept loudspeaker on and lowered the phone on the cushion next to his face. He buried his nose in the fabric. How defeated can a bloke feel?

Very fucking much so, apparently. Sirius closed his eyes and asked feebly, "This is Remus, isn't it?"

"Hello!" The man's slightly awkward but good-natured laughter echoed from the speaker and made Sirius flinch. He wanted to kiss the casing of his phone! Thank goodness he was alone and no one was witnessing his evident mental meltdown, since he did just that. Sirius kissed his goddamn phone and Remus kept talking beside him. "You know, with this I could harass you to make me pay even less, rent-wise. You should be more careful what you say to people, or they might take an advantage of you by blackmailing. It's nasty. Thank heavens, I am a nice guy." Sirius could hear him titter over the line. No, really. He was honest-to-god _tittering_. Sirius felt another bunch of shivers go through his, well, muscles and whatnot. "Personality-wise, I mean. I do have some bad habits, but..." Remus ceased talking. "Oh, never mind."

"I thought you were my mother," Sirius muttered to the microphone, letting his cheek mush against the sofa. The sofa was understanding. The sofa felt pleasant against his rapidly deflating self-esteem. "She's evil, you know. Really evil. She's Cruella DeVil and I'm a puppy and waving my tail at the visitors in a pet shop, but no one's helping and I'm going to die." Sirius sighed soulfully and half-expected Remus to say 'poor baby' in his ear. Remus didn't. "I even had a Facebook account at some point, can you imagine? But she kept spamming my wall with links and events of homo to hetero conversion thingies, so I had to take it down." Why in the hell was he telling Remus all this? He never told anyone anything, ever. Sirius winced again.

"You could have always blocked her,"Remus' voice suggested sympathetically, and Sirius was glad to hear that the man wasn't grinning anymore. Not that Sirius didn't fancy his oddly seductive smile, because he did, but the man was feeling Sirius' pain, er, probably... yes, maybe he was. Remus even sounded as though he was frowning. Hallelujah, how amazing! Or so Sirius interpreted the voice of a man he had known for less than a day."It's rather easy, but you can always search the Help Centre, too. That might turn out to be useful."

"She has connections," said Sirius lowly. "Think Mafioso boss. Had I blocked her, she would have incited every last one of her life-force sucking contacts on me in person. I'm taking precautions here. Did you see the locks?" Remus laughed lightly and voiced a soft yes. Sirius wanted to see the guy's face. "They're all upper class wankers, who speak with a posh dialect, as in –" Sirius lifted his pitch and continued with, "'Care for more biscuits, darling, while our flabby doctor husbands play another round of cricket in the back?' Ugh," he ended and heard Remus snicker on the other end of the line. Man, he enjoyed that sound. "God... I hate them."

"So even you have problems with your parents?"Remus' growing laughter got mixed up with sounds of rustling paper. Admittedly, since his childhood home had dismissed Christmases and birthdays almost completely, Sirius had only spent a limited time with presents of any kind, but it certainly sounded as though Remus had turned into an elf and was wrapping a Christmas gift in definitely didn't whimper at the thought of the man wearing a fluffy Christmas hat. ...Only a fluffy Christmas hat."I thought you were too cool for that. You appeared so collected yesterday that I almost asked you where have you stacked M and Miss Moneypenny." Remus' voice faltered a bit. "Or at least you seemed that way, I don't know if you really were, uh, and although I have no idea how you seem on other days, because we don't exactly know each other, which... I – um, the – eh." He stopped talking and sighed. "See what mean when I say that babble when I'm nervous? _This_ is it."

Why was he nervous? Sirius asked Remus blearily, "I'm not sure, but are you making fun of me?" Please let him be, so Sirius could punish him the second he walked in the flat. He definitely had bought a riding crop at some point of his life. Why, though? He was afraid of horses. Why indeed. Maybe he should look for it. That, or the lap dance rope.

"Not in the slightest." Remus laughed again. Sirius could hear the faint crinkles around Remus' eyes as the man presumably grinned at something on his end of the line. The nervousness was there still, but the laughter covered it. Sirius' ears also subtly caught those adorable dimples and the way Remus bit his lip. No way around it, he just had to give his phone another small peck. The phone was practically demanding it. "I mean, why would I do that? Why would I make fun of someone I barely know?"

Sirius continued mumbling against the microphone, "Sorry to disappoint you in this way. I'm not cool." He exhaled. "No, I am. I'm super cool, and that's the reason I'm breathing in my sofa at the moment. I'm awesome. Cheers for asking." What the hell was wrong with him.

Remus sniggered at that. Sirius thought that maybe it was Remus' way of handling things, by laughing at everything. To be completely honest, Sirius himself didn't laugh that much, but maybe Remus could change that. Laughing with him could be nice. "Hey, uh, actually, I just wanted to ask you if it's all right for me to come by in about two hours?" The man inhaled and started talking faster again. "That said, I managed to get the movers only for later, so the furniture I have coming with me will arrive later today, obviously, but since I have to go working tonight, I might not be – I guess we can discuss this when I get there, right?" He chuckled. "I only have like clothes and small stuff to bring with me now." The man kept a small pause, obviously to let Sirius cuddle up around the words. They were so smooth. "Is that all right? If I just... appear there?"

Sirius glimpsed at the clock on the wall, still hanging above his flat-screen television. It showed 11.12am. "Sure." He nodded, even though Remus probably didn't see his head pop, or whatever it was doing against the sofa. "You're welcome. I'll be here, wrapped up dead in my own embarrassment; if you don't get through the door, and if I've started to reek already, consult Gabrielle about a spare key. She's the next door. If you speak French, that might help." Then he realised something. "You know what, do not knock on her door. You might get... eaten alive. So don't do that, maybe?" Please don't do that.

Remus laughed again. _"Zut alors. _What did I get myself into?"Sirius wanted to grab the man's face between his hands and give it a shake – with his tongue. Maybe that would have showed him exactly what he got himself into. Had they not been on the phone, Sirius might indeed have encountered difficulties keeping himself of doing something that might have later, in the presence of several barristers, been regarded as an act of incursion. Into a Scottish man.

Once Remus had bid Sirius goodbye for the time being, Sirius placidly placed his phone on the living room glass table, and then took his time to progress to inhale the rather intriguing set of floorboards. Yes, he slid on the floor. He really hadn't the faintest of idea why in the fuck was he acting like a complete twat when he heard Remus' voice. Maybe he really did have a brain injury.

After a while of contemplating all sorts of serious business and the possibility of a man-made tumour in the central nervous system, Sirius managed to get up from the floor, thank you, and take two steaming-hot showers (the latter happened mainly for the sheer reason that he in actuality forgot he had already taken the first one). By the time he was done with them, he only had approximately 125 minutes to decide on an outfit, and as everyone knows, about two hours is basically nothingwhen choosing a seductive get-up.

Did someone say seductive? No... Of course he was only set on finding a comfortable and not at all sexy set of clothes. Seductive? Alluring? Drool-triggering? Overrated. Why would he do that?

Yet, however much he tried to convince himself that he wasn't trying to look his best that day, he found himself searching for a flattering outfit that was going to serve well in the purpose of getting someone to, uh, view him as something other than a beggar. And, instead of one hundred and twenty-five, it took him three whole minutes to create the aforesaid flattering outfit with the aid of boyfriend jeans (the neatest and unpaintiest pair he had, no judging) and a loose-fitting black tank top with a huge-arse star on it, which, if someone wanted to know, was not his first choice of a shirt. In reality, he wanted to wear his trusted flattie-coloured jumper with an enormous neckline and holes and snags, but something in the back of his mind told him that he probably shouldn't look like a hobo instead of a beggar, so... the star-shirt it was. He covered his non-existent biceps under a grey cardigan Lily had bought him some time ago. Sirius hated clothes shopping.

He even went to the absolute extreme of not hiding his hair under a dirty scarf; he made a loose bun of his overgrown locks to his neck and like a cherry on top of the cake of fucking gorgeous, his hair strangely made him realise that he kind of looked nice. Actually no, scratch that. His reflection in the mirror was not nice. It was sprayed with _handsome, what are you, a male model of the year_. Sirius simpered at his mirror image, but thought that he really needed a haircut.

The main reason he concentrated on perfecting everything that morning – his outfit, his hair, the way he smelled – it was all a part of Sirius' plan to make Remus feel like home. Obviously. He really just wanted to make the man think he belonged in the flat, with the furniture, and... with the painting. Maybe with Sirius. What was so wrong about that? He furrowed his brows at his reflection, the exact one that frowned back at him, and then slowly something, which made the following 120-so minutes the longest ones he had ever lived through during the entirety of his sad life, dawned on him.

"Oh shit," Sirius mumbled to himself.

He knew nothing about Remus Lupin. Absolutely nothing. He blinked at himself and all sorts of horrible scenarios started flowing through his brain. The day was certainly shaping up to be like that one blind date James had hooked him up with about a year ago; the blonde IT guy had been very hot and very into Sirius in return, but in the middle of their date somehow Sirius had found himself being completely turned off because of the man's drunken story about flying to Japan to sniff boys' –

That was the last time James had been involved in his dating.

Maybe it was the case with this dude as well. Sirius watched himself in the mirror. Remus could be a right-wing extremist and a collector of first editions of the Twilight books, and maybe he even flaunted those said first editions at people's faces in sweaty Tesco queues? Boyfriend material? Certainly, but there still were a few downsides to that. Maybe a lorry filled with ridiculous Cher-inspired wigs and enormous shoes would park in front of the house with him, for he was probably a scary-arse birthday clown, who did shitty balloon animals for kids for his living during the week and then over the weekend he killed black-haired gay painters who were stupid enough to let him in their flats just like that.

_Breaking Dawn_ counted as a blunt instrument in criminal law, right?

And worst yet! Remus could do shoddy balloon-versions of Edmund whatshisname Cummins to little kids and then eat too much cake at some tyke's birthday party, just because that was the way he rolled and no one was allowed to say anything about it, although Sirius really didn't like cake that much and he felt a bit like panicking as he thought about the whole thing. He drew a tense breath. He had to deal with the guy, but how?

Without an extra thought, he staggered into the kitchen and tried to calm himself down by gulping down two pints of ice cold water, and once his brain felt like going absolutely numb, Sirius swiftly glanced at his clock on the kitchen wall. 11.25am. The overly pretentious clock was made of an old LP record (the Lovin' Spoonful) and it reminded him about the inevitable passing of his favourite folk rock artists. The Mountain Goats would publish their last album. Dylan would die. Life sucked balls.

The clock also told Sirius that Remus would be there _any_ minute. He felt like he was having an asthma attack, and he didn't even have asthma. Maybe he should stop smoking nonetheless? He wasn't even sure where he had stashed his fags this time, so maybe that was a good omen. Where they in a slipper by the fireplace? He hadn't slippers, much less a fireplace.

What was happening in his brain again? And when was the last time he had felt as completely confused yet still inclined to keep his thoughts on someone's smile as he felt right at that second? Someone, uh, who was most likely just smiling at him to make him less nervous. People said that Ted Bundy had been kind of lovable with his smirk? Sirius thought Ted Bundy was scary. Remus wasn't scary. Remus generated butterflies.

"Butterflies," mused Sirius to his sympathetic sink, and with that intelligent thought he teetered back to his living room, snatched his phone from the sofa and called his trusted helpdesk – but instead of a monotonous lady-voice greeting, 'This is the helpline for I'm Probably Going to Be Serial-Murdered by an Adorable Scottish Psychopath,' a soft spoken woman answered Sirius with a, "Hi. What's up?"

"What's your take on butterflies?" addressed Sirius her instantly back, rubbing his scalp as he paced in his living room. "Are they here to make our lives more enjoyable by fluttering their colourful wings and too-long eyelashes at us while we're drinking coffee, or are they maybe waiting for a chance to murder us in our sleep and then take over the world, because that's what they really are about underneath all that delectable awesomeness and beautiful coif of hair, coloured almost like maples in autumn? Psychopaths." He chuckled at himself and slowly rubbed his face. "No, actually the colour's more like dark honey, but sunlight sort of glows right through it."

"...What?" the woman asked him. "Sirius, are you trying drugs again? You know you cannot handle that." Sirius was about to protest, but the voice kept going. "I still remember the stench when you puked in my car after that experiment with ecstasy, and it's been 8 years, so the reek was pretty abominable. If you have to get buzzed, just keep drinking wine, okay?"

"No, but Lily," Sirius wheezed as he sat down on the Richmond. He eyed his surroundings and his voice was not louder than a whisper when he continued with, "I might be in a pickle, and calling James wasn't an option, because he's bad at being in situations, in general. Involving men." Sirius squinted. "My men. Well, not exactly my men but not his, either."

"So you killed someone," Lily said promptly to his ear. "Right. What you're going to do is that you are going wrap up the body in your carpet, the blue one, and once I'm done with work, we're going to take James' car and dump –"

"No!" Sirius interrupted her and hissed, "I haven't killed anyone. I am going to be serial-killed myself, I think!" He swallowed and tugged the bun on his neck – still there. His knees popped uneasily up and down. "I need your input here, so... help, please? Am I scared for my life or am I just plain nervous to see him? Which is really not that normal for me, I'm never nervous to see anyone, but Lily, I was nervous when I talked on the bloody phone with him! There is a very high chance that I might have to relieve this uneasiness by jumping on him without a warning when he knocks on my door again. What if he has a knife? Why... do, why – oh, well." He waited for a second. "Does that make sense to you?"

"Nothing you said made any sense," said Lily calmly and resumed with, "Look, my class starts in five. Brief me up. I have no idea what you're talking about."

Sirius inhaled deeply, as though readying himself for a debate about the importance of numbers with a mathematician. "So yesterday this one bloke, attractive, tall, voice to die for, came to my door. It was raining and I don't know, he might have been panting, but what matters is that he was looking for a room, so of course naturally I rented my other bedroom for him without a question and he's coming over with luggage in two hours, and he might be a serial killer, but somehow I'm still anticipating him like he's the frigging ice cream van and I'm five years old." He inhaled again for his lungs started to ache. There was a throbbing pain behind his eyes, too. "Is this what people call a death wish? I've always thought mine would be directly in relation with my mother."

"Breathe," Lily said soothingly with a mantraish voice she had obviously picked up from her Hatha yoga class. "The simplest thing to do is to not let him in. You have a door, don't you? Last time I was there, you did."

"Yeah, no, but he's really good-looking and pleasant and oh god, he makes my feet tingle," Sirius told the woman, hardly even breathing anymore as the words slipped out of his mouth like a lubricated snake. "You know I don't tingle that easily. Who tingles these days? It's 2013!" He huffed at his own words. "But however gorgeous, he also might be a Twilight panty-sniffer which makes my fucking head hurt – like, what if he turns out to be an actual crazed murderer, right? At least I'd die looking at him. He looks really nice!" Sirius tilted his head and his reflection in the television did the same. "That's a pleasant way to go, isn't it? Some people do prefer dying in their sleep, but personally..." He munched on his lip as he tried to swim through the labyrinth of his thoughts. Lily was very quiet on the other end. "Okay, forget that."

"All right," agreed Lily way too quickly.

Sirius continued with, "There's one other thing, though: do you believe in love at first sight? Everyone knows it's rarer than a unicorn. It doesn't happen!" Sirius importantly lifted an index finger up. "However! I read some place that if a man is falling in love, as in this unicorn type of thing, he keeps an eye contact with the person approximately 8.2 seconds or more, and when I first met the guy, I was staring at him for like three minutes, non-stop!" Sirius inhaled and asked, "What does that mean?"

"That you are _muy loco_."

"A long shot, but what if I'm not, though? What if... I'm – no that's stupid." Sirius made a face at the air. He shouldn't say the words. The words were so stupid. Of course he blurted them out. With closed eyes like a little boy confessing something he did not want to confess. "What if I'm falling in unicorn love with a serial killer who sniffs knickers?" He only realised after saying the words how stupid that actually was.

Lily sighed deeply and voiced the sentence Sirius was dying to hear. "Look, you are just overreacting. We both know you do that. King of Sweden knows you do that."

"Okay," said Sirius and managed to take a breath. Thank heavens for Lily Potter. "So no unicorns?"

"No unicorns," agreed Lily softly. Her voice was echoing a bit. Was she on the can? How dared she sit on the toilet when Sirius was calling her. "And definitely no love. You are nervous of getting a flatmate you don't know that well, and let's face it, you'd probably still be nervous even if you did know him. You've never had a proper one."

"Are you in the toilet?" asked Sirius as though he hadn't heard a word she said.

"No, but you are turning into a real boy, Pinocchio!" She laughed at her own super awesome joke. Sirius wasn't laughing. "So... Was that your problem? Anything else? I still have 15 to 30 seconds."

"I don't think you have helped me one bit!" shouted Sirius desperately.

"Ah. You can always pro and con him?"

"You and your stupid lists, Lily," Sirius groaned, scratching his neck. "One day, I'm going to shove them into your –"

"Google it!" Lily shouted at him and her voice almost disappeared into an annoying ringing sound. "Right. That's my cue! Call me later, around 2pm, okay? So I know you're not dead." The woman was laughing again, and in addition to that, Sirius heard a horrible noise which most likely was a huge herd of 5-year-old kids. Lily stopped sniggering and said, "Also, remember to eat. James told me you haven't been eating."

"Yeah, yeah, Mum." Sirius ended the call and leant his head against the backrest. So that was futile. He brought a hand to his forehead – all clammy. He rubbed his cheek. He had shaved? When the hell had he done that?

After a few minutes of just sitting there, Sirius shot up and grabbed a pencil and an empty sheet of paper from his bookshelf, sat on the couch again and hastily scribbled on the top of the sheet,

_PROS_ | _CONS _

He started from the side in favour of Remus, and once he had got the hang of what he was writing, things were flowing out pretty smoothly, filling the left side of the paper quite completely.

_fit bum, voice like honey, cooks, likes shitty decor, eyes, stop smoking (could hide fags), witty, amazing skin, nice to look at, I like him, he likes bob, awesome hair can I touch, __voice__, sexy, dresses nicely, weed smoking mate, freckles, long fingers, can help with facebook? j doesnt, VOICE, I hate facebook, not hungarian, sexytimes could be supersexy I am sexy_

He watched the list once finished with it, mumbled a satisfied, "That's about it," and continued writing the other side. And after a while of thinking everything possible that might have been wrong with Remus, the paper only said: _plausible gayhating twilight clown serial killer sniffer man_

Sirius stared at the paper.

There was nothing wrong with his lists.

* * *

About 84 minutes later he heard a loud triple knock from his flat door, making him start up from the Richmond where he had dozed off again after feverishly trying to find something useful from the Internet. The earlier list had already met its doom (the kitchen bin). Once Sirius had managed to not throw his innocent netbook against the nearest wall, he turned his crazy-detector on, and then slowly started to make his way towards the door as though he was the original Danger Man. He opened the locks to his cave and peered behind the wood as if waiting for a nuclear reactor explosion.

"Hello!" Sirius did not see a scary clown in a _Team Egbert_ shirt in front of him, but someone who completely wiped his mind plank with a mere smile; it definitely was a good thing that Remus was wearing a beanie to cover most of his hair, or Sirius might have lunged at him to take a long and unquestionably hallucinogenic sniff. The colour of the man's locks was a lot more vibrant than he recalled. Remus smiled widely at him. "I'm early, aren't I? Sorry about that." Sirius' eye was not twitching. "I tried calling, but you didn't answer. And then I almost sent you a message, but it turned out kind of – never mind."

While he stared at the way Remus' lips moved as he talked about something that did not exactly register Sirius, Sirius dropped his mesmerised gaze on the light grey Imperial Crest –t-shirt the guy had on, and he heard himself say, "I was doing stuff, and... things."

"Are you all right?" Remus asked him. He only had that black beanie, his shirt and his almost-black jeans, but boy did he look good. "You're a bit pale."

"Sorry," managed Sirius brightly.

"No reason to apologise," Remus replied instantly with a warm, alluring smile, and turned his eyes on his right. What was it with this man that made Sirius want to say _sorry_ the entire time? He was so very sorry about that.

Sirius had thought that maybe the fact that he had been a tad tipsy when he saw Remus the first time had made the bloke more glorious than he was in reality, but no. The alcohol had nothing to do with anything. Sirius wanted to lick him, serial killer or not.

Then he blinked. Something was terribly wrong with his unicorn.

"Gabrielle," Sirius slowly said to a petite woman, who was hovering around Remus and his luggage, some of which the guy had lowered on the stair landing. Gabrielle turned her eyes to Sirius, flipped her silvery-blonde hair over her shoulder and arched her left brow as though asking _what_. Suddenly very much awake, Sirius gritted his teeth at her in a way he might have been a dog in another life, but somehow still managed to look like he was smiling. To a certain extent. "What are you doing?" Sirius turned his grimace-grin to Remus. "You knocked on her door?"

"No, we met at the front door." Remus turned his eyes on the woman. "Right? She was one more package to carry." He gazed back to Sirius. "She's quite light, so it's all right."

Gabrielle merely simpered at the man. Sirius thought she looked heavier than usual. "Really, she is?" Sirius asked, trying not to frown more at the woman. He was certain that by now he looked like someone had replaced his Murine eye drops with freshly squeezed lemon juice. "Cute. However, Gabe, shouldn't you be going to that... evening shift that starts in... six hours?"

"Not this day, _non_," the woman uttered, her lips very close to Remus' ear. "New boy in work." She was too close, Sirius noted himself, whilst shoving his hands into his pockets. The woman pressed her whole tiny body against Remus, who was smiling at her in an amused fashion; she brought her arms to his shoulder and hanged from there like a damp cloth does with a rack. Sirius, on his part, pressed himself against the lovely door frame, still glowering at the woman, who had her jaw on her hands on Remus' shoulder and whirred, _"Il est très beau, un homme parfait." _She turned her suave smile to Sirius._ "Est-ce que je peux lui manger comme le petite déjeuner? __Non?"_

What the fuck was she saying? Sirius understood nothing. Yet, he answered with a stern, "No."

Sirius didn't miss the way Remus smiled genially to the woman, and he really wanted that expression to be directed at him, not at that... rutty French toast, who admittedly made the city's greatest French toast. Losing a bit of his Scottish accent, Remus said to her, "_Merci beaucoup,_ _mademoiselle." _Sirius cringed as he witnessed _those_ eyes and _those_ dimples fixed at Gabrielle's outrageously pretty face. No, Remus, stop!Sirius could make out a cute,_ "_Pardon my poor French_," _and an extremely informative lean to the woman's ear. Why was this happening.

He was probably whispering something about a later date he was planning to have with the bird. Sirius' heart sank next to his threshold, where it was to be, indubitably, trampled within a week. He was sure of its demise and was already planning a funeral. There was going to be a Peruvian folk band playing a setlist of the sullenest songs ever written by Morrissey, and a buffet filled only with crêpes, accompanied by an enormous variation of jams. Crying would be prohibited. "Well," said Sirius quietly to himself. "It was too good to be true."

While Sirius witnessed Remus to smile at Gabrielle as though saying something along the line of "You get me, gurl? Now give me dat booty," the woman watched Remus back with wide eyes, without remembering the existence of Sirius, who was just staring at them, not quite mentally there. "_Non_."

Actually 'quite' was a ridiculous understatement, but something in the atmosphere told Sirius to snap out of his Xzibit-narrated daydream and manage a dry, "Gabe, I love you, but don't you have any _other_ young gentlemen to bother? In your apartment? Like... _now_? Maybe?"

The woman squinted at him as she drew her hands away from Remus. _"__Juste comme tu as, _horny dog_._"

Remus snickered indistinctly as the woman moved to her door and vanished from the landing. Sirius stared at after her. "What did she say to me? I'm not a dog!" Horny – yes. On Mondays.

"I like your shirt, Toto," Remus told him unhurriedly, ignoring Sirius' question and smiling even wider while trying his hardest to keep the luggage from falling under his arm. He tilted his head at Sirius, biting his lip a bit, and not being able to say anything because of the sight, Sirius realised that yes, he really, absolutely loved his star-shirt. Always had. Never had he doubted his love for his beloved star-shirt. Remus asked him, "You can't speak French?"

No, Sirius couldn't speak French. He felt his brain cells die one by one as he watched the gorgeous being in front of him, and after offering to help Remus with his luggage without a sound like Buster bloody Keaton, he snatched two black sports bags from the floor and hoisted them on his shoulder. After a movement so massive he actually got some blood in his brain. "No," Sirius said and made no attempt to move from the doorway. "The only things I can say are _merde_, _putain_, and _Gabrielle, tais toi!" _He shrugged as Remus sniggered at his extensive French vocabulary. "I know those because they are important to me, but I don't think I'll get a diploma just yet."

Remus kept smiling at him widely, and Sirius thought of a sunray in a beanie. "Can I maybe come in?"

"Oh, yeah, I'm sorry, of course," Sirius then hurried, moving aside from the man's way. He watched how Remus effortlessly carried inside a load under which an elephant would have most likely died. His upper arms looked… Well, they were there. "You sure you're not going to collapse under that weight?"

"I hope not," Remus told him over his shoulder as he hauled the bags inside. "You should have seen me carry all these up the stairs, though." He lowered everything on the floor and turned to face Sirius, whose vocabulary did not include 'a stunning motherfucker'. "I have more bags in the car, but only clothes; I can get those later."

Then and only then Sirius realised that he was supposed to fight a bit more before letting the bloke in. Darn it. It was too late for that now, wasn't it? It's not like Sirius was going to start tossing Remus' bags in the stairs. His laptop bag looked really expensive! He flashed a smile at Remus. "...Sure. Later. Uh-uh."

Remus started to take off his Sneaky Steve Rodeos (not clown shoes, thank heavens), and Sirius followed the man's previous suit and carefully let go of the two miserable bags he was still holding, letting them slid next to those Remus had carried. Once done with his shoes, Remus lifted his eyes on Sirius. "Did you know that the elevator's out of order?"

"Oh that? Yeah, it's been that way for a while." Sirius brought a hand to his hair. Maybe he should open it? Gabrielle had had her hair open, but then again, when _she_ had her hair untied, she did not look like that one American bird, Anne Attaway or whoever she was. Sirius, on the other hand, did. "Before Gabe moved in three years ago, there lived an experimental physicist in her flat, who kind of... exploded the lift. I think he was trying to find the secret of flying. I have no idea. He was super odd, though." Sirius snorted. "People can't fly."

Remus stared at him. "Wow. I thought this place was like a retirement home."

Shaking his head, Sirius walked to close the flat door. "It's more like a funeral home, actually, but we do get the occasional nutcases who cause some sort of health hazards." He nodded at the man over his shoulder. "Keeps us on our toes."

With a mesmerising chuckle, Remus crouched to his bags, and a second later, he was on his legs again and handing Sirius, who had returned from the door, a brown paper bag. Remus held it from its handle and tilted his head again. "These are for you. Cheers for having me. I try not to be a hazard of any kind."

But Sirius hadn't _had_ him yet. Eagerly he took and opened the bag, and he just had to snicker a bit as he placed the bag on a chest next to him, one which was against a tile wall that separated the living room from the kitchen. From the bag he pulled out a pot plant, placed it on the bureau and fingered the small, thick leaves carefully. Remus had got him a fucking flower and wasn't his mind just plank again. "What is it?" Sirius asked. "The leaves are funky."

"There's a label sheet in there somewhere," Remus said from next to him.

Indeed Sirius found a small leaflet in the plant. "Crassula ovata." He quickly and quietly read the instructions on the label paper without thinking how bloody much he enjoyed Remus' little gesture. No one had ever got him a living thing before! He raised his brows once he was done reading. "A money tree?"

"Yeah," Remus mumbled and rubbed his face. He stepped closer, almost into Sirius' personal bubble. Sirius wasn't smelling him, shut up. He was just looking. "Okay, cards on the table," Remus then said, flailing his hands a bit. "I'm lousy with plants and given the opportunity I would, without a doubt, kill every single plant handed to me. I have tried picking up on gardening, but I kind of managed to kill a cactus." He made an overly unhappy face, and Sirius tried not to whimper pathetically at the sight. How cute! "The dying art of floriography I can handle, that's mostly books, but if anyone ever asks me to actually take care of a plant, yeah, well, it's going to die."

"Really?" asked Sirius with raised brows. How was it possible that a grown man with a sudden burst like that was making his stomach ache with excitement? James had bursts a few times a week and Sirius' stomach couldn't care less about those.

"Yeah," Remus said again and gestured at the flower. "This one I saw in a store yesterday, and I remembered that it was also called..." Remus frowned a little at the plant and snapped his fingers. "A friendship tree? Yes. So, there I was, talking to myself, and suddenly getting one for you seemed like a really good idea. I mean, you have a few plants here, and..." He licked his lips again as he kept his eyes on Sirius' baffled face. "Look, I know people don't appreciate plants as gifts, but..." He quickly touched Sirius' shoulder and then took a step back. "You are welcome. I am not taking it back."

"Thank you," Sirius managed with a smile once the guy was done rambling. Now was his chance to touch the guy back! Not creepily, of course not. "A friendship tree is a very nice gesture," he continued, and quickly and feather-lightly touched Remus' upper arm, nudging it for like a second. Heavens how the skin felt. "Really, thanks so much."

"You can give it to your neighbour if it's bothersome."

Sirius squinted at him. "Now why would I intentionally get our friendship tree killed?" He shook his head and gazed back at the plant. "No, I like it. I'm going to call him... Frank. Yes, that's a fine name." He glanced at Remus, who was chuckling next to him. "After a few weeks of training he's ready to fight for our dawning friendship if some other, slightly more menacing bush calls us names or threatens to piss in our milk bottle." He glared at the plant. "Bushes be crazy, Frank. Get your shit together."

From next to him he heard a soft, "I'm glad you like him."

Sirius really wanted to give Remus a long kiss as a thank you, but instead he gave the man a quick smile and again peeked inside the paper bag. With a, "Oh man, really," he hastily pulled out an almost black wine bottle with a red cap. "Château Cheval Blanc, 2007?" He turned his eyes on Remus, who was watching the bottle._ "_I thought you disapproved of this."

"Red wine is healthy if taken cautiously." Remus scratched his neck, his fingertips leaving a small red blotch there. "And it was basically the only thing I knew you liked for sure... Wine. Frank there was really just a lucky guess." He averted his gaze from Sirius'. Damn it. The man watched a huge painting on the tile wall and frowned a bit. "I mean, I couldn't go and buy you paints, for example. You painters are strict with those and let's face it, that would have just made me seem like a total idiot." Remus laughed lightly as he returned his eyes on Sirius; the happy crinkles around his eyes made Sirius want to sing like a bad nun or something. They were slowly becoming one of his favourite things. "I reckoned I should keep my idiocy hidden for the time being."

That was not necessary. Sirius was an idiot, too. With his idiocy he tried, "But the bottles, yesterday, they weren't mine, not exactly, they were –"

Remus interrupted him with a warm, "You don't look the type who binges on donuts." He stepped closer to Sirius and patted him knowingly on the shoulder. Holy fucking shit, and then he was smirking again. "Sorry, not buying it."

So he had been checking Sirius out? Sirius licked his lips as he watched Remus walk to his luggage. "How would you know I haven't eaten donuts?" He chuckled nervously. "Been following me, have you?"

"I'm just guessing again," Remus said nonchalantly and threw a look at Sirius over his shoulder. "You're a painter after all. Always pissed, et cetera."

Sirius feigned horror. "Stereotypes!" He brought the bottle on his chest, holding it close as though it was a treasured gift his almost-passed grandmother had given him years earlier. Sirius didn't like her that much. "And here I thought you were nice. Giving me wine. You trying to get me drunk before you... kill me?" He only mumbled the last words.

"I might be nice," Remus said casually to his bags. "Or I might not be. That's really your job to find out."

Sirius blinked at the man's back. This guy would be the death of him.

Maybe literally. "So, er, yeah. Thanks for this. Wine..." Sirius nodded to himself, and then calculated that it was a good time to go about his mission of investigation. With wide eyes he faked to remember something. "Oh! Oh, you know what? This bottle absolutely reminds me of something." Remus looked at him and Sirius nodded. "Could we maybe talk about something important for a second or... I don't know, twenty, before you unpack all your stuff? Many bags."

"Okay," Remus said instantly, standing up again. Sirius wasn't at all admiring the graceful way the guy was moving. He blinked. Concentrate. Killers might have perfect set of hips, too. "What about?"

Sirius brought a hand to his tied hair again, only to realise he was still holding the frigging wine bottle. Yes, he hit himself with it. Smooth. "I just... Come sit here," he muttered, placed the bottle on the dresser and quickly padded to the sofa, waving the guy to follow him and rubbing his forehead at the same time. Remus smiled bemusedly at him as he sat on the other end of the sofa from Sirius, and thinking he should go with _good cop_, Sirius began with, "I thought we should talk about this... thing were in. Currently. It's..." Sirius squinted. "It's one of those things I kind of need to know. As your lessor I even think it's my civilian duty to know before I know something I don't want to know, or you know, to be a part of it. With my stolen kidneys."

The man next to him blinked dreamily. "I'm sorry, I don't follow."

"You... moving in," Sirius went on. "There's a bit of a problem."

With his mouth slightly open, Remus nodded. "I knew it. Your boyfriend doesn't quite fancy the idea, does he?"

"No," Sirius said instantly. "I mean, _no_! No boyfriend, no, I just eh, well." Sirius smiled and scratched his throat. "Before you came here, and I'm talking about minutes, I realised something, and I need to get certainty on this. So, I went through some things in my head, and suddenly I was thinking about glittering vampires and rusty Chevy vans – I mean, clearly everything got kind of heavy and crazy, fast." He watched Remus as the man stared at him with quizzical brows. Sirius sighed. "Believe it or not, I've never had a real flatmate before."

Suddenly Remus' mouth curved upwards. "No-brainer."

Oh. Watching Remus watch him, Sirius' heart made a double summersault with ribbons. "Well, I also realised that I eh, I simply agreed on you moving here without knowing anything about you. I literally only know your name and that you don't smoke or drink." He leant closer to whisper, "You could be a serial killer clown from Glasgow and I would have no idea. Although, why would you... tell me that now." He blinked heavily as he sat up straight again. "Strangely all this makes me very, very upset, even though I've never ever been afraid of Scottish people before." Sirius actually started to feel slightly less agitated as Remus watched him with that cute smile of his. It seemed as though his left dimple was a tad deeper than his right one. "But let's face it, you, in particular, are going to have a key, so that's prone to enhance the apprehension I might be feeling right now, which I am in no way going to admit."

Remus nodded solemnly. "I'm from Edinburgh, not Glasgow."

"Okay, now we're getting somewhere," Sirius said happily and snatched his netbook from his glass table. "Yet, as you've probably already noticed, I'm crummy at getting to know someone, and like I told you, I tried to figure this out in my respective head, and it all just exploded." Sirius smiled at the man as he resumed with his computer (a simplified and very inexpensive one; James had given it to him as a present after Sirius had 'accidentally' smashed his previous laptop in a wall) and said, "I didn't want to, but I had to resort to the world of the interweb, so bear with me. Technology loathes me, but we try to get along." His eyes were on the screen. "Gabe lets me to freeload her Wi-Fi."

Remus watched him trying to manage the touchpad.

"Son of a fucker..." Sirius mumbled and tapped the spacebar a few times.

"I think the feeling of loathing is mutual," Remus said cheerfully.

"I hate this thing." Sirius cleared his throat in a very manly way and lifted his eyes to Remus' attentive peepers. Now, focus. "This, what I have here, is a list of questions that are going to make me understand you a wee bit better. Please answer truthfully, because..." He squinted as he read the text from the screen. "'The more honestly you answer, the more accurate our compatibility rate is when we...' Uh, what." He frowned. "What?"

Now Remus tried not to laugh. "Are you on a dating site, by any chance?"

"What?" Sirius asked again, this time directing the question to the man. "No! This is –" He turned his eyes on the monitor and he froze. "...Fuck me! Really?"

Remus being unable to suppress his bubbling laughter definitely reached Sirius' list of new favourite things in the world. He forgot his hatred towards the computer as he ogled at the laughing man, who asked him after calming down a bit, "So what you have there is a bunch of dating questions? To know if I am a serial killer clown and whether we're compatible on that front?"

"I am so sorry," Sirius said, giving a monkey's if he seemed like _sorry_ was the only sodding word he knew. "Really, I was just quickly trying to find something useful and I fell asleep and then you were already knocking on my door, and I was kind of groggy and worried and I didn't actually even read these, so..." He let his words wither on his tongue. "Sorry, let me find another site."

"Wait," Remus hurried, slightly pouncing from where he was seated. He lowered his arse back on the cushion, and after pulling his feet on it he said, "If you think about it, those questions might be good ones for this occasion. Some bored-with-life psychologist-in-training has spent hours of crafting those questions into a way of finding if people can trust and get along with each other. And..." He smiled affably. "Isn't that what you're trying to do now?"

How sun-like can a person be? Sirius found it hard to avert his eyes from the awfully genuine smile. Ted Bundy? "But it's 50 questions. We're both growing a beard long enough to tuck it into a belt before we're finished."

"Just ask five, then," Remus suggested and took a better position on the sofa. He had turquoise socks. "And if you can't decide on them, I'll give you a number and you'll ask me the corresponding question." Remus watched him without blinking. "Deal? Would that satisfy your current curiosity about me?" To that question Sirius nodded slowly, as he wasn't able to make out words while staring at Remus like he had never seen a human being before. Remus had an almost indistinguishably tiny mole over his right brow and Sirius wanted to run his fingertip on it. In candlelight. With whales having brutal sex in the background.

What? Concentrate. "Okay," breathed Sirius.

"Okay," Remus agreed contently, letting his smile widen still. Impossible, though. "Let's start with... the number of Fritz Lang films? 46."

So, 69, was it? What was Remus' favourite sex position? On, or under Sirius? Did he enjoy sex toys and if he did, which ones were his favourites? Number one question, though: had he ever been with another man before? Maybe Sirius should start with that.

"Sirius?" Remus asked.

Shit. Sirius turned his eyes on the screen. Honestly now, man, focus! "46 was it..." He scrolled the page and found the right question. "Found it. 'Have you ever had, or ever could have a ménage à trois?'" His eyes widened as he lifted them at Remus, who was, oddly enough, not blushing and trying to flee the situation. "...Eh?"

"Yes." Remus answered simply. "11 Academy Awards for _Return of the King_."

What? Has he had threesome? With whom. With a king? No that was _Lord of the Rings_. Sirius shook his head as he returned to the screen. He would definitely need to take a cold shower after this. "'Do you have any hidden talents?'" He lifted his eyes on Remus. "It doesn't specify what sort of a talent." Maybe tying a cherry stem into a knot with his tongue? Or being able to do a light series of sit-ups (about 195 or more) and then carry another, approximately 170-pound British guy on to the bed behind them and not even sweat while doing so? Sirius liked sweating, though. Sweating was nice under right circumstances. Remus could sweat on him and Sirius wouldn't even blink.

"Well, I don't know if it's a talent," Remus started uncertainly, "but I can eat a whole dark chocolate slab under four minutes, even though I'm not that fond of chocolate." He questioned Sirius with his eyes. "Does that count?"

Holy cow and its celestial udders. Remus could eat Sirius, whole, like Hannibal frigging Lecter if he wanted to. He wasn't the meatiest of men, but good cooks were able to make miracles, right? Sirius watched the man back with an unwavering stare. "Really? You can do that with... without a problem whatsoever? Neat." Neat? Really now. Sirius smiled at him.

Remus shrugged in an unflappable manner. "I lack the pharyngeal reflex."

"The what now?" Sirius' almost entire family was full of doctors and nurses, so where was his knowledge of anatomy when he needed it? He was sure he had heard of that one before. Maybe in a magazine. Pharyngeal –

With an incline of his head, Remus elaborated, "I don't have a gag reflex."

Oh yeah, that's what it was!

No, wait. "You don't... have, ah..." Sirius decided to let his brain melt just a little amount and because he chose to do so, he had to close his eyes for a bit and count to hundred, very slowly. Once he had got to _three_, however, he fixed his gaze to Remus again and asked him with an undoubtedly high-pitched voice (as though he was suffering), "What else can you do?"

Without questioning Sirius' pained expression, Remus answered him with a proper, "I can write with a quill and I have a certificate from a calligraphy course. I don't know why. I can name almost all of the DC superheroes and most of the Marvel ones." He thought about something, "At one point I was able to walk elegantly in high heels, and I've always been exceptionally bad at group sports involving some sort of a ball... especially if there are many of them and I'm in high heels. I count that as a talent." He smiled sincerely at Sirius, who was not gawping back. Remus bit his lip. "Very talented, aren't I?"

Most definitely.

"Right, on to the next one," said Remus. "The age of Brandon Lee when he died? 28."

Seriously now, Sirius shouldn't get flustered over some _words_. He inhaled a bit and was not thinking of Remus temptingly reclining on his bed, reading the _Tales of Suspense_ with the first-ever appearance of Iron Man, and wearing a pair of tight see-through lace knickers, skin-licking suspenders and thigh-high nylon socks, and oh man, red Christian Louboutin Bianca Patients. Sirius swallowed and had to force himself to think about something else. Anything else. After all he wasn't one of those men – words did not excite him. Not one bit. He was a man of action and not bloody horny Shakespeare. "'Do you want to have children?'"

Remus took his beanie off. "I like children," he said, ruffling his fucking hair. "After all, the hope of our future rests in them." He casually swept his hair backwards. "But if it's not possible, for me to have children of my own, then I believe I'll be content just being with the one I love." He smiled at Sirius while shrugging. "Who knows. I'm still relatively young. Now... 6? The minimum number of people to work full-sized animatronic Jabba."

That was a nice answer, and a very nice tuft of hair. Sirius silently watched the man and his very nice tuft of hair, but had to drop his eyes on the less inviting display so he wouldn't have acted on his urge to _touch_ that very nice tuft of hair. Jabba the Hutt question was, "'What is your idea of a perfect Saturday evening?'" He glanced at Remus. "Probably means like not a date? I'm not sure."

"Well, if not a date and if not working," Remus started, "then I'd like to have a cup of tea, turn on the telly with BBC Entertainment and just laze about with someone who's not judging me by the fact that I prefer being home in my pants rather than at a nightclub, spasm-dancing to Ke$ha." He chuckled and added, "Also, if sex happens, I'm not complaining."

If the sex would happen with someone named Sirius Black, there was a 280% certainty that Remus wouldn't be complaining. Sirius smiled genially. No lie, he was starting to really like this man. More than just his face or his voice, or his hands that had once felt nice against Sirius'. He adored the way Remus' (most likely) non-murderous brain worked. He couldn't suppress his grin as he asked, "I'm sorry, but what the hell is spasm-dancing?"

"You know, like so," Remus said importantly and made a series of awfully spastic dance moves with his head and hands, sort of resembling Ian Curtis doing the Macarena. Sirius snorted at him, making Remus chuckle at himself and stop immediately. "Yeah... I guess you can see why I don't spend my time at clubs. People would get themselves injured around me."

Probably so, but Sirius said nothing and just kept grinning helplessly.

"All right, eh... Sorry about that." Remus made an embarrassed face. "I promise to never to do that again."

"Please do," said Sirius while trying not to laugh. "That was very... entertaining."

Remus wasn't blushing, right? Why would he blush. "Isn't this the last one?" Remus asked his own knees, and Sirius nodded hazily at him, still smiling like an idiot; he would compose a written promise to the guy that he was allowed to spasm-dance in the flat all he wanted, no restrictions other than that he would have to blush like exactly that every time he was finished. Remus asked him suddenly, "When's your birthday?"

"25th of October," Sirius heard himself say before he could stop himself. "Like Picasso." Considering their very comparable art styles, there was a chance that Sirius was his reincarnation. The new Picasso. "Haha, yeah right," grunted Sirius out loud.

Remus' brows were hiked up high as he stared at Sirius. "25, then?" he asked simply, pulling Sirius out of his stupid daydream. "Cannot get much worse than the dancing."

Without a word, Sirius turned his eyes on the screen. Oh. The last question was... important. "Okay, be truthful now," he said slowly, lowering his voice as he lifted his gaze on Remus. "Ninjas or pirates?'"

Remus watched him back, bringing his tongue to the corner of his mouth. "This is it, isn't it?" he asked, shifting in his position a bit. He pulled his knees toward himself, placing his arms on them and straight at Sirius. The beanie was still in his hands. "This is the one that's going decide whether I can stay or not."

"Yes," Sirius told him gravely. No one was allowed to wear socks that adorable. "You have to get this right in order to stay, because the dancing was pretty horrible."

"Damn," Remus mumbled and munched his lower lip a bit. Sirius had never wanted to be anyone's lip balm stick before, but if Remus wanted him to try, he would be more than willing to comply. Sirius Black, the man-shaped lip moisturiser. "That's a tough question, but I think I have to go with ninjas here," ended Remus.

"Grounds?"

"_I_ would look better in all-black than in a feather hat, flamboyant jewellery and eyeliner." Remus swept something off his trouser knee and then locked his eyes with Sirius'. "You would be a better pirate, though." That eye-contact right there, it was brief. Not long enough for Sirius to drown himself in Remus' hazel eyes, but it was there and it was fucking intense. A shade between chestnut brown and warm honey. Odds-on Sirius' new favourite colour. "If you don't mind me saying."

Sirius snapped the netbook close, placed it on the sofa between them, and nodded deliberately to the man. "Congratulations, you passed my first-ever killer screening!" As Remus beamed back at him, Sirius continued with a solemn, "But you could still be one. Right?" Right. He narrowed his eyes. "Are you?"

"I can't kill a spider if it's stuck in the flat. I always try to usher them out with a sheet of paper and a cup." Remus tilted his head at Sirius. "Now what sort of serial killer would I be?"

Sirius shrugged. "Friendly? Pleasant? An Edinburghian one." Remus giggled lightly, and Sirius had to control himself down a bit. He really wanted to jump towards the guy and cradle him. He heard himself say, "If you were to kill me, however, I would die happily, I think. Listening to you." He realised too late that he had actually said that aloud. What the fuck, Sirius, shut up! "Uh, I mean, your accent, it's... an accent?" Good job covering that, you dimwit.

"Yeah." Remus fiddled his beanie between his fingers, while keeping his eyes away from Sirius'. "I'm not completely sure why, but I've tried to tone it down, ever since I moved to London four years ago." He shook his head to himself. "It surfaces rather quickly when I'm relaxed, so sorry in advance if that happens. Just poke me if you don't understand a thing I say and I promise I'll try to do something about it." Sirius wasn't at all enthralled by the way Remus looked when he was trying not to grin.

And relaxed? Poke him? Sirius could certainly do that, with his, eh, pelvis. He exhaled and said, "My best mate's wife is from Glasgow, so it's not hard for me to understand at all." How would he enjoy making Remus mutter Scottish profanities with his unfettered accent under his breath. Under... Sirius? Or on top of him, either way was fine. What would the man mumble as the first thing in the morning? How did he answer his phone? And most importantly, how did he sound when he was singing? Being tickled? Sirius wanted to know. Very badly. He smiled at Remus. "So just relax if you want."

Remus flashed him one in return. Sirius noticed that his whole face lit up completely every time he smiled. It was quite lovely to look at. "I'm certain she and I have entirely different dialects. You might not understand a word I say if I let my guard down." He kept smiling, but he puckered his brows slightly. "And sadly, this serves as another example in our lives where an in-built translation circuit could be very useful. I was thinking this the other day, when a few customers came in and they tried to converse with me in Klingon." Remus tilted his head and touched his own chest. "I think they were trying to pick a fight; I was wearing this shirt, after all."

What? Sirius kept smiling. He smiled at the man so fucking broadly and thought that he was sure to have a cramp on his face. Never had he smiled so much during two days' time. _Stop_ it with the goddamn smiling already and say something. "...Klingon. As in _Star Trek_?" See, Sirius knew stuff.

"Now, don't get me wrong," began Remus hesitantly. "I can say 'Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam' and I've seen the original series and a few movies, but I'm not a Trekkie." He inclined his head towards Sirius. "Yet, I wouldn't go picking fights with people who are." He seemed very serious as he watched Sirius in the eye. "That's not cool."

"It's so not cool." Sirius shook his head gravely. "But tell me," he started with a smile that had diminished a bit but was still there; visible and hopefully charming enough to make Remus fawn over it later. "What's the politically correct term for a huge-arse nerd these days?"

The guy grinned amusedly at him. "Well, my business card has 'a professional science fiction film geek' on it," said Remus with a minor drawl. Damn that mouth, why was it doing that thing with the corners? That... up… thing, uh. Sirius shivered a little but expertly made it seem as though he was about to sneeze. Remus saw nothing and continued, "Which might be a tad misleading, since during my free-time I do enjoy all things science fiction and not just films, but it certainly gives off a different kind of energy. It's good for the business."

Yeah well, if it made any difference, Sirius was completely energised, never mind the title the guy used. "So you watch a lot of films and... what?" He studied Remus' face. He was undoubtedly the most stunning nerd Sirius had ever met. Not that he had met many, but he was an arsehole and had always thought that these guys all looked identical by default – yet obviously they didn't, since he had never seen a professional science fiction film geek just like the one he was trying so hard not to drool over right at that second. "You collect_ Hobbit_ –memorabilia, miniature spaceships and Justice League –bobbleheads?" As Remus kept staring back at him, not saying much, Sirius leant a bit closer and asked, "What are your thoughts on zombies? How probable are they?" This was a strange situation, indeed. Sirius had never asked any man he found totally gorgeous about frigging _zombies_. "And what's the sitch with the puss in the box?"

Remus lifted a brow. "Are we talking about a Pokémon?"

"Schrödinger."

"Ah." Finally Remus averted his eyes to his socks. He let out a low chortle. "Well..." he started confidently, but stopped as it was absolutely necessary for him to be biting his fucking lower lip again. He should stop with that. "The cat's probably dead. And... no to collecting memorabilia, per se, but I do have my own copy of the One Ring." Sirius wanted to groan something caveman-y, but he didn't. He just kept his eyes on Remus' popping brows as the man continued, "I had a scale model of Serenity when I was fifteen, and what comes to Justice League... uh, I think I might have one Wonder Woman –bobblehead."

The guy was smiling way too happily at Sirius, who had mentally descended into the abyss of the nearest ocean and was asking the hypothetical mermaids whether or not a person like this was even possible. Because Remus couldn't be real. There was no way he could be funny and geeky and cute and sane at the same time. Sirius had never been attracted to a man like that before. There had to be something seriously wrong with this fellow. Maybe he had a tail? He didn't exactly seem like the type to sniff pants.

"And," Remus continued since he hadn't answered all Sirius' questions and evidently thought he should do so. "Zombies – hopefully not, but who knows?" He brought his hand to bring a strand of hair behind his ear. It was sort of amazing how his hair was long enough to reach there, but still it was short enough to be... short. However it was, it looked good. Really good! Sirius was rather amused by his own thoughts and the way how observant he had become. "I'm not fond of firearms," informed Remus. "So if the day does arrive when we need to defend ourselves from the lumbering undead, I'm probably going to be using a crossbow." He smiled faintly at Sirius' undeniably untiring and dreaming expression, and asked, "Are you sure you're not a geek yourself? You have the right grasp on certain subjects."

If Remus wanted to learn what sort of grasp Sirius really had, he would be more than happy to oblige. His grip was rather tight and once he had a proper hold on something he really treasured, he wasn't willing to let go off that easily. Maybe Remus would learn that. "There is a chance," said Sirius warmly to the man. Remus might be able to turn him into a full-on geek and there was a possibility that Sirius wouldn't even mind. Not if it all happened with this man. "But I'm not sure." Remus could make him sure. Sirius inclined his head towards the guy. "You are, though, unquestionably nerdy."

"Oh, yes," agreed Remus instantly, his face suddenly awfully sombre. Like a little boy, he casually covered his knee with his beanie, his eyes staying languidly on Sirius' face. "But after all this time, I've come to terms with it, and now, I try to keep my chin up and adjust my everyday life to it, since I'm sure it's not going anywhere." Remus shrugged offhandedly with his left shoulder and brushed something off the beanie. "I asked my doctor about it, and he said there is no listed treatment for it, but..." His serious face changed into a full-blown grin again, making Sirius think of a rainbow rollercoaster of facial expressions. "Fingers crossed."

What the actual fuck was going on. Remus was laughing at himself and it certainly made the tingling in Sirius' toes worse. "So it's how bad, exactly? Your situation?" Sirius asked Remus while touching his own face. He shouldn't have shaved. Maybe Remus liked his men with a stubble. Yeah, well, maybe he liked men. "On a size scale from Gizmo to Smaug the Magic Dragon, how big of geek are you really?"

Remus watched Sirius delightedly while leaning against the backrest and saying, "I'm at a point that I own a small science fiction film store, so I'd say I'm fairly geeky."

"What?" Sirius blinked. "Seriously?"

"It's nothing glorious, don't get excited." Remus dropped his smile to his knee again. When he did that face, that faintly bashful one as though someone had just called him captivatingly beautiful at 6am (Sirius decided to save that for later) and he had a tad hard time accepting the words, that was when Sirius thought his face was at its cutest. How he wanted to reach forward and lift Remus' face up from the chin, just so he could be able to see his eyes while he looked like _that_. ...Fuck. Remus smiled lopsidedly to his the beanie as he slid it off. "It's just a nerdy little corner shop, but... It's _my_ nerdy little corner shop and I'm proud of it." He unhurriedly lifted his gaze on Sirius' subtly admiring face. "I mean, at most, I work six days a week and eight hours a day, and I have a massive loan from the bank and I'm probably going to be in debt until I'm 80, but I love every single second of it. That's how invested I am."

"You are totally serious right now?" asked Sirius. Not the smartest thing to say, but hell, he wasn't able to think about anything other than how happy Remus seemed to be able to say those words and how happy he himself felt for this guy. "So basically you're a private entrepreneur nerd?"

To that, Remus laughed wholeheartedly and smacked him lightly in the arm. "That's a new one, thanks!" He shook his head as he giggled. "A private entrepreneur nerd... Oh god."

"No, but really." Sirius scooted a bit closer as to give some back-up for his words, while steadily keeping his eyes on the guy's face. Not even after Remus had touched him so easily had Sirius realised that at some point he had moved from the other end of the sofa so close to the man that he was practically sitting on his laptop. Without leaving Remus' eyes, he removed the computer from under his legs and placed it on the table. "How did you... Uh. How did you?"

"Manage that?" Sirius nodded at him, and Remus answered with, "Well, long story short and boring, I have a Master's degree on film studies, and... this is what I do for a living. After graduation, I moved here with my girlfriend –" Oh fucking shit, no way! Remus shrugged while snorting, "But that didn't last." Thank you merciful god. "I had saved some money from my jobs since I was a teenager and I found a perfect little place to start something I had wanted to do for a long time." Remus smiled to himself. "It was tough, though, starting from a scratch, but somehow I've managed to make my way. Yeah, the economy sucks a big one and I would make more money if I'd be stuck in a cubicle, but I'm not doing this for that."

Sirius nodded. So this guy was passionate. A tremendously good thing to know.

Some sort of tired happiness gleamed on Remus' face as he talked about his shop. "When I opened, it was more or less a normal film shop, but it has slowly transformed into a –"

"Into a lorry?" suggested Sirius with an attentive nod.

Remus sniggered at him. "Yes, into a lorry! Obviously." Although laughing, he forced himself to continue. "Um... I started presenting my favourite films in the shop window, and because of that more and more people interested in sci-fi came visiting. And, well, since my own heart kind of beats for that stuff, it was a very natural development." Again a pleasant smile twinkled at Sirius, who had no excuses for staring at the bloke; he was just at it, point-blank. If Remus would ask him to stop, Sirius would refuse.

"Very natural," whispered Sirius cleverly. He was very mesmerised by the muscle movements on Remus' face. "Of course."

"We also have a small amount of merchandise and books, all sorts of stuff really, but mainly it's still a film shop." Remus scratched his head a bit. "I also started arranging a film night for every Wednesday, and today the film in question is _the Invisible Man_ from 1933." He smiled heartily. "I picked it for personal reasons, since invisibility has always fascinated me. I think it'd be nice to be able to shift out of sight occasionally, don't you think?" Maybe during Remus' shower. Sirius said nothing, and Remus frowned at his unbelieving expression. "It's a good movie, don't look at me like that."

"I'm certain." Of what? Sirius squinted. Not sure. The man had another small mole just below his lower lip. Oh! There was another one on his chin. Could Sirius maybe connect the dots? Tongue-style.

"Uh, so, yes," said Remus to him after he evidently realised that he was not going to get a better comeback from Sirius the Speechless. "I am officially a nerd, and I'm sorry for that speech I just gave."

"Amazing." Sirius couldn't avert his eyes. Something was knocking inside his melon and trying to tell him something. He ignored it and kept doing what he was doing. There couldn't possibly be anything wrong with this guy. No tail, nothing. He was just... "Wonderful."

"Thank you, I think," Remus said with that cute expression again.

"That must be fun, right?" Sirius then inquired him, leaning his arm against the back rest, his elbow almost touching Remus' shoulder. He was already sitting so close to the man that his knee was tightly resting against Remus' shin. "Doing what you love?" Sirius licked his lips. "That's everyone's dream."

"You should know that," Remus said simply. "You are doing what you love, I assume."

"Painting?" Sirius watched a light constellation of freckles under Remus' right eye. It was barely visible, but if he would lean in just a bit and – Woah, horsie! He sat up straight with wide eyes. Shit, shit, fuck. What was that? Too close, too flirty. "Yeah, yes, absolutely, painting! I love painting and I... paint a lot of things." Sirius nodded and swallowed. "They are in them, the things are in the paintings." That was _so_ fucking close. Damn it. What's cooler than being cool? "Ice cold."

"I'm sorry?" asked Remus.

"All right." Sirius shook his head. "Paintings..."

Obviously not noticing how very fucking flustered Sirius suddenly was, Remus popped his head lightly and said, "Maybe later you could show me some of them? I know nothing about art, but I'd like to see some of yours. They seem very interesting."

Sirius watched the man's fingers as they played with the beanie again. Sirius wanted to intertwine his fingers with them. Not exactly answering Remus' question, he mumbled, "I'd love to see your shop some time." You're flirting again. "Totally."

What the hell was going on with that blushing? It was really too testing.

Sirius had to take a step back. "Tea? I'm having coffee. A whole potful."

* * *

Sirius poured himself a large cup of black liquid in the hopes of becoming a bit more focused. What had Lily said about him being nervous? That he was Pinocchio? Sirius touched his nose. No, Pinocchio's nose grew when he was lying, not when he was trying not to flirt with the unicorn he really wanted to flirt with. He watched Remus cling his spoon against the rim of his mug as he mixed his tea. There was nothing to it. He could do this. No chatting up. Be cool.

"So, Scotland?" asked Sirius cleverly. "Tell me something about it."

"Like what?" Remus asked him in return, deeply concentrating on his tea. Was it really that interesting? Sirius wasn't jealous of a cup. The man grinned at the liquid, but soon enough he lifted his gaze on Sirius. "Our national animal is a unicorn?"

Oh fucking hell, so it was. If Sirius had believed in divine signs, that might have been it. "Is that so."

"Yes," replied Remus simply and took a sip of his steaming tea. "In fact, I travel to Edinburgh twice a year and try catching one with my family." As Sirius merely stared at him behind his coffee mug, Remus elaborated, "A joke."

"A joke?" Sirius repeated as he leant his lower back against a counter behind him. The red refrigerator stood proudly next to him and offered some sort of consolation. He really couldn't sit down at the table and be close to the bloke again. It was too dangerous. "Sorry, but all I can think of are kilts now." Oh how fine Remus would look in a shin-exposing kilt. "Does your family have a clan tartan? Like, er, yellow-black might suit you, if you don't mind me saying." Remus merely stared at him with his eyes that almost looked yellow ochre in the light of the small kitchen window. Holy fuck. Sirius gulped as he lifted his coffee cup in front of his face again. "Are you one of them Mackenzies?" he asked the porcelain. "Blowing air into your inherited bagpipe must be a grand activity during those traditional meetings with your family." Sirius cringed slightly. What the hell are you talking about? Just shut up already. "Do you... lot feed Nessie with breadcrumbs? Visiting the, uh... lake." He stopped rambling and lowered his eyes on his toes. Damn it. He wasn't even wearing socks.

"You have no idea what you're talking about, do you?"

"No," Sirius admitted, slightly out of breath. Then he added a quiet, "I swear, everything made sense in my head." Nothing made sense in his head anymore. If things would be alphabetised in there, they would begin with an R and end in an S.

"I highly doubt it." Once Sirius had his eyes on Remus again, the guy was smiling widely at him. Remus asked, "Do you maybe want me to tell you how incorrect you were just now? With... basically anything you said."

"I'd like that," agreed Sirius. How odd; usually if someone told him he was wrong about something, he was instantly defending himself. Oh. He had never had teacher-pupil fantasies before! Except that one time, but it didn't count. "However, if the information is very important of its nature, I might end up insulting you because this conversation we're already having, it's slipping out my mind as we speak." Which was very true.

"Well, in that case I have to educate you later when you're more focused," said Remus cordially and took another sip of his tea.

Now why in the fuck would he say something like that? Not fair. Sirius fought a grimace. He should change the subject before his legs would fail him. Faking an indifferent tone, he started, "You said there's a movie tonight? At your shop?"

"Yes," Remus told him instantly. That Beatles mug he had, it was way too lucky to have the guy's fingers around it like that. Bloody Liverpudlians. "_The Invisible Man_, which was Claude Raines' first talkie. It's one of my favourites. It's so... nonsensically brilliant." He lifted his brows a bit. "Have you seen it?"

"I haven't even seen _Titanic_ completely," confessed Sirius slowly. He brought his coffee mug to his lips again. The scent calmed him down a bit, but the effect was basically non-existent since those Scottish eyes were on him, making him anything but composed. "I fell asleep after the steamy sex scene in the old-arse car," Sirius told his coffee.

"Oh, the best part starts after that," said Remus gleefully. His index finger danced on Ringo's head. "They die. Well... mostly."

"They do?" asked Sirius as though he had no idea. Shaking his head he realised that even though he was unusually nervous around Remus, he did enjoy having this sort of conversation with the guy. He didn't take things too bloody seriously. Sirius appreciated good films as much as anyone, but if he ever watched them with James, the bloke always spend the time with remarking what was wrong with the flick or how 'never in a million years the physics work like that'. Lily read crime fiction. The most fruitful talks about films Sirius had had with Harry, and he was four years old and obsessed with dragons. "That's... horrifying."

"Yes," Remus agreed shortly. "It's one of the angstiest and gloomiest films ever made. Don't ever watch it." Something was glinting behind his eyes. "It will leave you in an emotional turmoil for weeks."

Sirius was sure that he was already going to be in emotional turmoil, so might as well! "Now that I think about it, I might have to watch it." He quickly glanced at the man behind the table and, even though he was honestly having a hard time taking breaths when Remus' irises were directed on him, he was deeply disappointed to notice that Remus was not staring at him. Sirius felt mighty conflicted. "I am very angsty and gloomy and overall just mentally bothered by everything," Sirius told the guy with a little grin, waiting him to lift his eyes. "So I might like it, yeah?"

"You don't seem gloomy," noted Remus helpfully. He was speaking to a bowl of biscuits on the table. _Biscuits_.

"I am," said Sirius and took a step forward, leaving the counter and moving towards the table. He would not be outshone by fucking Bourbon biscuits. "Like yesterday, I honest-to-god wanted to bash my head into that tile wall behind you so I wouldn't have had to open the constantly alive door." He had pulled himself a chair and slowly sat on it, placing his coffee mug on the table. "To put it bluntly, every time someone was knocking on the door, I wanted to stick my head in the oven."

When Remus finally watched him again, he was shoving one fourth of a biscuit in his mouth. "Was that before or after I showed up?" A sexy squirrel.

"Before," Sirius said immediately. Afterwards he was forced to take a cold shower. He would be forced to take one after this, too, since Remus had crumbs on his lip. Sirius dropped his eyes on his coffee again; yeah, maybe it had been a really bad idea to move closer. He wanted to lick those crumbs away. "No, but really," he continued, trying to sound like he wasn't affected of anything at all. "I had to deal with all kinds of annoying people, and I'm not good at that. I like people, excluding..." Remus licked his fingers. "Annoying ones. I don't like annoying people and I prefer being annoying on my own, if possible." Good job at sounding unflappable! "I've actually perfected that over the years."

Remus nodded, removing the crumbs from his lip with a thumb. "Then why did you put up an ad for a lodger? There was bound to be at least a few interesting people asking about the room. Always is."

Because Sirius hadn't put up an ad. He hadn't wanted a flatmate. He didn't want Remus as his roomer, his lodger; he wanted _Remus_. The thought was stuck in his brain and playing in an aggravating loop. Distractingly loud, one might add. "I..." Sirius started, but stopped as he thought of his words. What should he say? He shouldn't scare this bloke away by telling him how he made Sirius feel. He also shouldn't tell Remus that he once had tried to do the splits and because he failed horribly, he had been forced to go to the A&E to get some cream on his sprained arse and the nurses hadn't believed him when he told them that he didn't own a sex swing. Remus also shouldn't know how Sirius' dick had looked like an aubergine for a week after that. Although why would he tell _that_ to a guy he only met? "I wanted to find someone nice enough to share a cup of tea with," Sirius said quietly. "Someone who's not a complete nutbag. Tea... once a day. Maybe." He then realised something. "Although I only drink tea when I'm out of coffee."

"Me?" asked Remus. He had finished playing with the biscuit. "I was the least strange? Are you kidding me?"

Sirius shook his head. "I'm not. There was this one bloke, who asked me if he could pay the rent with..." Sirius gestured with his hands, but damn it, he had to say the words. "Well, he wanted me to paint his cock once a month, in the role of the rent, and I'm not talking about a pet rooster here."

"Oh," said Remus simply.

"Yeah. Really, you were the..." A few adjectives tried to battle their way out of Sirius' mouth, but he thought he should censor them for the time being. "Sanest of the lot." And not at all making Sirius awfully rattled. His hands felt all clammy and he wanted to dive under the rug and cry because he was acting like a frigging teenager.

Remus frowned slightly. Would the small crease be there between his brows when he was sighing and moaning helplessly? How about when he was dreaming about muffins? "You didn't ask me anything. Not my tenant history, my preferences or habits." Then he smiled suddenly. "How would you know that I'm sane?"

"Aren't you?"

Remus kept grinning, but he directed it at his mug. He had almost finished his tea. "I do have my Harvey moments, but at least I'm not going to pay the rent by letting you paint my dick." Oh, what a bummer. "And... You know what? I think I should apologise," he unexpectedly uttered. "It was kind of rude of me to say you should have been more thorough with the questioning yesterday, since I wasn't giving my best there either. Like I said, I was too mesmerised to realise anything." _Anything_ got emphasised slightly. "And excited to maybe live in a flat with such a gorgeous view. And this kitchen!"

Yes, yes, but mesmerised by _what_? Come on! "If you want to know my instant motifs of taking you in," Sirius started, and seriously contemplated on telling the bloke everything. "You seemed kind of meticulous, yeah? I had this vibe that having you here wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing." Hell no it wouldn't. Sirius half-smiled and his heart thumped infuriatingly in his chest. "I'm actually kind of a slob, so I need orders. This clean façade here," Sirius said and gestured around them. "It's only an illusion. I was rage cleaning before you came here."

"Oh," Remus spoke again, very silently and gently letting his lips curve upwards. "Does that happen often? Rage cleaning?"

"Occasionally." Having Remus there would most likely mellow him out a bit, so no cleaning? That was the price to pay for having a man like that prance about the place. "But I don't think it's necessary to be cleaning in a while anyway, I did a rather thorough job."

After emptying his tea mug and pushing it away, Remus nodded at him. "I hope I can make myself useful here in other ways, then. Maybe I could be in charge of the cooking?"

"Yeah, definitely!" Or maybe he could just stand there, those pretty eyes twinkling at Sirius and they could wrestle and snog all day long and uh. Sirius cleared his throat. "Or like saving my life, perhaps. Do you know CPR? Mouth-to-mouth? Might come in handy."

Remus' eyes were tightly on Sirius' face. "I'm sorry?"

"A severe case of trypanophobia," answered Sirius as though it told Remus something. It had been some time since he had told that to someone just like that. Amazing. Despite all his wandering thoughts, how easy was it to talk to this guy? Remus made a baffled face at him, so Sirius cleared, "I can't stand needles, and... that sort of generates a fear of hospitals, so if I ever drink myself into a point where I need medical assistance, just... don't." He shook his head. "No needles. No hospitals. CPR."

"But I might break your ribs."

Sirius nodded. "Okay, well, then I'm probably going to be all right if you just let me die."

Quietly Remus dropped his eyes from Sirius to his own hands. "I can't stand the sight of my own blood," he then uttered hurriedly, noticeably feigning a happy tone in his voice. "If we're talking about things that scare us." Yeah, his tone was _not_ happy. "...Sorry. I shouldn't have, uh –"

Although there was no eye contact, Sirius faintly shook his head at the guy, telling him to not apologise. Where the hell did that come from? And where had Remus' smile gone? After blinking unhurriedly, Sirius asked him gently, "You can't see blood?"

"I'm okay with blood in movies, or if it's someone else's blood, but I kind of..." Remus tilted his head and brought a hand to his eyelid. He tried to grin, but failed miserably. "We don't have to talk about this."

"For future reference?" suggested Sirius, but not in a way that he was pushing.

Remus nodded hesitantly at the table. "There's something about it, the sight of my blood gushing out of me, it's... It petrifies me." Remus chuckled tensely and hastily glanced at Sirius as though saying sorry for speaking. "Even if it's a small cut, I instantly think it's worse than that." Sirius wanted to reach his fingers, take them in his own and squeeze them tightly until the guy would feel better. Why, though? He didn't hold hands with anyone. "And then I... panic."

"You have panic attacks?" Sirius didn't realise that his voice had softened – also he kind of failed to notice how the palpitation inside of his ribcage had vanished gradually as he kept his whole attention on the way Remus suddenly sounded and looked wounded.

"I wouldn't them call panic attacks," Remus said but added a small shrug. "But..." The expression on his face was suddenly mixed with discomfort and shame, but he still tried to smile. "I might stop breathing and get other symptoms of a real panic attack. It's the blood. I can't..." Remus frowned deeply. The lack of the crinkles around his smiling eyes did a lot to his face. "Don't worry, though." He let out a low laughter. "I try to be careful with things so you don't have to deal with this."

Sirius said immediately, "No, _you_ shouldn't worry. I'm able to deal with most cases of panic attacks." He really was. Thank heavens he was. Something good at least came of his nightmare-like family. "I might be able to transfer that knowledge to your possible situation, right?" Remus had his eyes on Sirius and he nodded tentatively. "Yeah? All I basically need to know is if you prefer being alone or in a company." Sirius watched Remus' fingers; he had a mole above his right thumb. "I don't want to make you feel like I'm threatening you, and if I'm around you without your permission, you might... get worse, and that's the least of things you want during panicking." He watched the guy stare at his own fingernails. "Even though you say it's not technically a panic attack."

"Oh, don't leave me alone," Remus said tensely. "I mean, I might get rude, but it's better for me to have someone there. If possible. It calms me down more quickly."

Sirius half-smiled and pushed his coffee away. The scent had turned bitter. "Gotcha."

"Wow, this... Turned dark quickly, didn't it?" Remus huffed bemusedly and brought a hand to his face. "Sorry about that." Sirius didn't mind dark. He was dark. He was _Black_. "How do you know, though?" Remus asked him, leaving his face alone and fingering the handle of his mug. Sirius lifted a brow at him. "About panic attacks. You have friends, or?"

"No," said Sirius, still smiling a bit. "When I was in my teens, my parents – doctors – wanted me to take a class of some sort." He crossed his arms on the table. Could he maybe make those lips curve upwards again? That in his mind, he decided to try. He touched the ear of his own cup. "Mostly it was a load of rubbish, but I learned some pretty valuable tips." Remus waited him to elaborate, and Sirius did. "For example, I know what to do if you eat rat poison in a cupcake addressed to someone else, or your patella or shoulder gets dislocated after an attempt of becoming a Jackarse." He nodded solemnly and watched the slight wrinkles reach Remus' eyes again. Fuck yes, he did it. He was the shit! "I can also tell you right now that if a radioactive spider ever bites you, you won't turn into Spider-Man."

As a wider smile spread on the whole of Remus' face again, Sirius felt somewhat exultant. "Bugger."

Only a little.

* * *

Before he left for work that evening (as mentioned, a film night), Remus had wanted to thank Sirius one more time for letting him move in the room, and even though Sirius would have preferred a simple snogfest on the bed as a thank you, Remus had done something no one had ever managed to do before: he had taken Sirius grocery shopping.

Now, of course Sirius had been shopping before, he wasn't a child, but he usually only shopped for coffee or tea or toilet paper, and left the vegetables and spices and fresh herbs for someone _who actually cared_.

Who apparently was Remus, since the man bought all sorts of stuff Sirius had never seen nor heard about in his life, like pulverised turmeric and dried star anise seeds. What the hell was Remus going to do with those? The man had hauled Sirius to the fresh food counters and had shoved all kinds of vegetables and fruits under his nose, trying to get Sirius help him to determine whether or not they were ripe enough for them to buy. Normally Sirius would have just left the situation as he found it absolutely boring, but Remus had looked quite adorable while bustling in the midst of the colourful counters, and because of that Sirius' legs had been completely inoperative. Also the fact that Remus had literally tugged him with him had made Sirius think that maybe he could like... come there more often, shopping, with Remus. Maybe. Vegetables.

Most of the conversation they had while shopping had consisted of Remus commenting about different kinds of pasta or the ludicrous prices of tomatoes or the ingredients for his favourite dishes with fish, and Sirius hadn't said much as he had spent his time thinking how he couldn't wait to see Remus in his natural habitat (the film shop) where he would most definitely talk a bit more enthusiastically while looking like he forgot to breathe altogether. For if the dude was this excited because of Brussels sprouts, then it would be almost too intriguing to see how much he would be bouncing off the walls when he could freely talk about his favourite nerdy stuff.

The lack of frozen pizzas and instant soups in their shopping bags had made Sirius awfully sceptical (and not to mention hungry), but he had quit grumbling as he had watched Remus quickly prepare them an awesome looking stir-fry supper with kale, bacon and cashews.

Once he was alone again, Sirius called Lily.

"You're alive!"

"Yeah, but I'm in big-arse trouble now," Sirius moaned pathetically as he filled the kitchen sink with water. "A lot bigger than earlier!" He stopped the tap and leant his free palm on the counter. He felt very overwhelmed as he watched the utensils Remus had used for cooking swim in the water. "I don't know what to do, or what's even happening anymore."

"Uh-uh." He heard Lily nodding in the other end of the line. "So you ended up killing him. Have you considered that this approach does not suit you? You shouldn't kill anyone, you are too indolent for something like that."

"I didn't kill him," said Sirius, again speaking quietly as though someone besides Lily was able to hear him. He glanced around his kitchen. There was no one there. "He's... uh, well? Not a killer, but pretty awesome, as in over tenfold more awesome than I thought he was." He leant his forehead against the edge of the sink and grunted, "He's so lovely, and I really like him."

"Why do you sound so wretched, then?"

"Because he cooked me food and I've never felt this healthy in my life," Sirius snapped, not exactly knowing why. He straightened his back. "This is ridiculous, Lily. He's nice, and I – argh. He's probably this nice to everyone, but I'm still very taken here because no one's ever nice to me." He pouted childishly to his own image in the window. "It's very refreshing after all the Wolverines I've been with."

"Yeah, since when have you liked _nice_ guys?" asked Lily. Sirius could hear popcorns popping in a kettle in the background. "You have a type and it's riddled with 'not nice' and 'blatant stupidity'. Those guys have not been lovely and they definitely haven't been cooking... anything else than meth."

Sirius toed the sink cabinet door. "He's more than that, though. He's, uh..." Suddenly he was out of words. The previous list of Remus' so-called favourable attributes seemed vastly idiotic now; Remus was more than just his fit bum or the way his jeans wrapped around it, more than just his voice or his long fingers. Sirius felt kind of silly because he wanted to learn everything that Remus was, but at the same time he felt even sillier because he didn't already know. The world was a strange place. "He's –" How the hell was he going to describe Remus to Lily in a way that she would get a minor understanding how magnificent he was? Sirius thought about it. "He's a Grimshaw painting."

Lily gasped loudly.

"Exactly," concurred Sirius. He sighed unhappily and rubbed his face. "What am I going to do?"

"Well, you could ask him to be your boyfriend and then marry him."

"What?" Sirius asked her, shaking his head slightly. "Yeah, this isn't a Jane Austen novel, it's not that easy." His reflection in the kitchen window was frowning back at him. He should stop frowning. "Especially both of us being men."

Lily didn't listen to him. "Marry his arse so hard he can't feel his legs in the morning, or I will, regardless of the fact that I am already happily married and I have a son and I have never even met the guy." She inhaled heavily, during which Sirius could have easily interrupted her, but he knew better than do something like that. "It's your duty, Sirius, to make him yours and then bring him to our place on Harry's birthday. Tell him we have ginger ale and a Chewbacca/dragon –inspired cake. I want to meet him."

"Calm your tits." Sirius moved away from the sink, flicking off the lights from the kitchen. He moved sluggishly to the living room, but stopped in the middle of the room. He eyed the place as if he had never been there before. It felt abnormal. "And no, I'm not going to marry him. I've known him for two days. Are you even sure you meant to say marry? Because I can work another verb there, resulting to numbness in his legs." Then he sighed again and mumbled a sad, "Honestly, he's probably not even into guys. That would make me too damn lucky."

"Just be your natural annoying self and he will fall hopelessly for you even though you might not match the exact sexual preference he has grown accustomed to over the years. People fall for people, not sexes. Besides, everyone knows dicks are amazing."

"No, dicks are fantastic," corrected Sirius as he made his way to a Pelican chair.

Lily laughed carelessly in his ear. "Ah, my life. Have you heard? It's as though I have two husbands, really, on a different level of intimacy – one who shags me and with whom I actually share my life, and one who shags all the men I cannot shag due to my aforementioned marital state." Apparently the woman had finished with the popcorn, since Sirius could hear her moving to the other room. "I am living the dream, aren't I? I have _both_ Darcy and Bingley, who was, without a doubt, into men."

"Bingley wasn't gay." Sirius smiled to himself as he sat down. He leant his elbow on his knee and his forehead on his hand. Definitely a gloomy position. "I'm afraid yours is the only marriage I'll ever be directly involved with." He exhaled again. "I'm going to die alone."

"You said he's a Grimshaw, Sirius. There's a great chance that you will marry him."

"No, that requires his –" Sirius' laptop interrupted him, singing on the glass table and scaring him to the point he almost fell on the floor. "Fuck, why is it making that sound?" He tumbled to the table, snatched the laptop and opened the lid. "Oh god, James? I'm going to kill him!" He saw a Skype window blinking orange colour in the taskbar and blurting out that annoying tone as a call was coming from James. Keeping the phone between his ear and shoulder, Sirius opened the call from JPOT/fbgm.

James' head popped in a small window on the screen. Their living room was well lit, and tiny Harry was sitting next to his father on their sofa, waving his hands towards the web camera. "Do not marry anyone named Grimshaw," greeted blurry James sternly. His hair was a horrid mess, and he was wearing a Grateful Dead –t-shirt and his enormous home-glasses. Harry had his light blue pyjamas on. "That is a ridiculous name."

"Like a doggy," agreed little Harry loudly next to him, making his dad nod seriously at the laptop. Sirius chuckled at the way both of their hair was the same sort of a mess, making Harry look like a miniature James. The boy turned his little face to his father and tugged his shirt sleeve. "Daddy, why don't Uncle marry Buck? Buck is a boy."

Sirius made a face at his living room ceiling, hoping that the webcam of his laptop would not capture his sneer. He then sat on his sofa and smiled at the laptop screen. "Harry, Uncle is not going to marry your dog," he tried firmly and extremely clearly. He said to Lily, who was still on the phone, "Look, I'm not marrying anyone. I'm just a bit confused because I'm not sure what to do in a situation like this. That's why I called."

Lily said nothing to Sirius as she hung up the phone call, but at the same second she sat down next to James on his left side; James quickly adjusted the screen so that Sirius was able to see all of them. "Intervention thingy, right now," Lily said happily to Sirius and placed the popcorn bowl next to the laptop. "A quick one from your family."

"What?" asked Sirius. "No! We're not interventioning anyone! You don't even know how to do that."

"We already paused Hiccup for you," James told him solemnly. "Okay, that was a lie. We paused Hiccup for popcorn, but we are doing this and it's going to be serious."

"That's Uncle's name," said Harry with a knowledgeable little grin, making him look even more like his dad.

Sirius wasn't even sure what was going on. "Who has a hiccup?"

While patting Harry's moving head, James said, "Hazza collected all his toys without complaining, so _How to Train Your Dragon_ –night! Woo!" In unison, all three of them did a small dance at the screen. Sirius shook his head at the dorks. Once they were done dancing to him, Harry was babbling about dragons and reaching his hands toward the screen before James pulled him back from under his arms. "So, yeah. We're watching it... again."

"I want a dragon," Harry said professionally as he settled himself between his parents.

"Of course you do, sweetie," said Lily, her eyes firmly on the laptop. "Now, an experimental intervention. Your flatmate, shoot. And remember your language."

Sirius rubbed his face. "Do I have to?"

"_Oh_," started Lily as though surprised. She was talking to her husband. "Darling, Sirius wants to tackle his problems on his own! Imagine that!"

"Okay, fine," mumbled Sirius and sat better on the sofa, the laptop in his lap. He adjusted the screen so he was able to see himself in the small window. After a while of thinking, he started, "I feel... strangely clichéd when he's with me; warm and fuzzy and like I don't detest anything as much as I normally do. And..." He saw Remus' beanie on the sofa next to him. He grinned contentedly at it, and turned his eyes back to the screen where his friends were quietly sitting on the sofa, listening to him. "I have no idea what's going on in my brain, but it feels like it's slowly shutting down because he smiles at me." He couldn't stop smiling as he shook his head. "He... makes me flustered, and I don't get flustered. I don't." Lily and James both nodded at him. Harry was seemingly bored as he was planking between them. "But... All he has to do is to look at me and I get flustered and because I am flustered, I'm thinking that 'oh crabsticks, I'm really getting flustered here' and then I'm getting _more_ flustered and it's a vicious circle and everything that comes out from my mouth resembles some sort of a grunt you hear in an alligator documentary on Animal Planet."

"Alligators," Harry said all of a sudden and slid on the floor. Sirius didn't see him, but he heard his tiny voice mumble, "Mummy, I'm a snake. Listen! Ssss..."

Smiling a bit to the boy's enthusiasm about reptiles, Sirius continued, "My hands are clammy as though I'm a teenager, and my stomach, it feels like it's full of spaghetti and someone's twisting it with oily cleaning gloves." He turned his eyes on the wall above the television. 06.54pm. The dog was still on the wall but he didn't care. "I'm waiting him to come back from work but at the same time it makes me nervous all over again." He turned his eyes on the grainy picture of his friends. For a second all he saw was Harry's forehead. "What do I do?" he asked as he watched Lily snatch Harry from the laptop. "I haven't felt like this since... Well, it's been a long time since I've felt like this. This _good_." He brought a hand to his face and realised that he was still smiling. That was... disconcerting. "It's scaring me. I don't want to bugger this up, whatever this is, by doing the same stuff I always do. So please, tell me. What am I going to do?"

"Don't do anything," said James at the same time as Lily said, "Ask him out."

Sirius stared at them. "This intervention is rubbish."

"He can't ask his flatmate out," James told Lily while Harry tore himself away from Lily's arms and ran off somewhere. "If it doesn't work, which is in every probability the most likely outcome, it can get real ugly." That was true, but Sirius was not going to admit that. "Honey, it's _us_ who are going have to deal with everything that comes after a rejection. Pete said that he's not going to Dr Phil this guy anymore, so he's out of the equation."

Now Sirius tried to say something, but Lily was faster than him. "But he fancies the bloke! You heard him! He's smitten. And you know him! He's not going to give up if he gets a thought in his head, and obviously he has a very firm thought in his head, considering his flatmate." She turned her eyes to the web camera. "Sirius, say his name."

"Remus," Sirius told them with a dreamy grin. He wasn't even going to try stop smiling. It was futile. "Isn't it pretty? I think it's Indo-European, because he told me that his grandmother –"

On the screen, the woman turned to her husband."Yeah, he's lost it. I'm sorry, baby, but this is a fight you cannot win."

"So he has a crush on a straight guy," agreed James. "What could possibly go wrong with that one." He turned his face to the computer and Sirius saw him smirking slightly.

"Um, did you say a crush," Sirius repeated unbelievingly. "A crush? I have a crush. Okay, good. Just a crush. I..." Suddenly everything made sense. The revelation of the decade made his stomach feel a lot better. Now he knew what he was battling with! Why hadn't he thought about that earlier? Sirius, you twit. He had a crush, nothing serious. "I have a tiny, little crush on him?" He wasn't able to stop smiling. "Oh man, he's so wonderful! Before he left for work, he told me a story how he once had a rat and –" The grin cemented on his face. Shit. "Holy shi...atsu massage lady! I have a crush on him!" He made an incredulous face. "A crush. Like a school girl?"

"Yes, you have a sheer physical and superficial attraction towards a guy you barely know," said James austerely but instead of Sirius, he kept eyeing his wife. "And it's going to pass." He turned his eyes on the screen again, lifting his glasses a bit. "Do not do anything hasty you're going to regret a few weeks from now, and this includes asking him out and being rejected. Flatmates do not mix up well."

Lily answered him with,"But if he would do something about it, there might be a chance he would get a real relationship for a change!"

"Yeah, but that's not going to happen if the dude's straight!" James laughed at Lily. He pulled his legs on the sofa and crossed them while gesturing wildly towards his laptop. "Isn't it a bit wrong to give him false hope by talking nonsense when he's not even sure the guy is into guys! Seriously, Lily."

"I'm right here," said Sirius flatly, but no one heard him. He was right there, already drowning in the false hope.

"There is an equally large chance that the flatmate might be into him and later turn into his boyfriend! Wouldn't that be good?" James shook his head at her unbelievingly. "I think so! It's been a while since he had a real boyfriend."

"I know," said James loudly, still laughing. Sirius was able to make out his tone and he realised that James wasn't exactly happy to be talking about the subject. Suddenly Sirius felt very stupid for calling them and bothering them in the middle of their evening. They had a life of their own. "Don't you think I know that? But do you remember what he did? Because I do!" Lily quickly shook her head, as though telling James not to say another word or Sirius might end up on the floor, crying his guts out. James lifted his glasses again and restarted more quietly, his face facing the screen. "Look, all I'm saying is that you shouldn't rush into something that might..." But he didn't finish his sentence, and calmly started another one, directing it to Sirius as well. "I don't ever want to see you in that state again, you hear me? So, whatever you decide to do, just... please."

"I know," Sirius mumbled softly, but he was sure they heard him. He watched his best friend hang his head low. "I'm sorry."

The last thing Sirius saw before the window turned black was that James rubbed his face tiredly and Harry ran back to them – apparently the boy had shoved his brand new dragon plushie (or so Sirius thought, he had never seen it before) in the screen, blocking the sight completely. According to Harry's rambling, the plushie's name was Norbert. Lily's voice said, "Harry, baby, can Norbert give Daddy a hug?"

Once the dragon had vanished from the camera and Sirius' friends were visible again, he said, "No offense, guys, but you are giving me nothing. My kitchen sink had better advice." He bit his lip and watched his godson move closer to the laptop, waving at him again. The boy had placed the dragon in his father's lap, just like his mother had asked. Sirius smiled widely and waved back at the tiny being. "Harry, what do you think?" he asked clearly. "Uncle likes someone's face, very much. As much as you like dragons! What should Uncle do?"

Harry stared at the screen and shouted,"Mummy buyed a melon!"

"A melon," said Sirius as he watched Harry move away again and climb on his father's lap, tugging the dragon from him. "Awesome. So... my options here are either to ask him out or to completely ignore the fact that I really, really do like him? A crush, you say... Uh." Sirius swallowed. Again he was smiling and his head was starting to ache. A strange feeling to have a headache without a hangover. His mind was all over the place. "The melon..." He shrugged. "Well, that's a bit too vague for me to grasp, so I'm going to sleep on the melon, figuratively."

"All right," Lily said and scooted to the edge of the sofa. James had fallen on his back on the sofa and Harry was straddling him, shoving the dragon into his again-smiling face. The woman had her gaze tightly on the laptop. "Answer me this: why are you nervous around him in the first place? It's not like this is the first time you have a crush on someone." That was very true and Sirius seriously thought about it. Maybe it was because Remus was different? After all the arseholes, Sirius was pretty able to detect one. Remus wasn't an arsehole. He seemed like a fucking Disney prince. "You said yourself that you're never nervous."

"I've never fancied someone like him," said Sirius instantly. "He's a total dork, he's from a different world than any other guy I've ever liked. What could _I_ say to make him..." His voice dropped into a whisper. "Maybe like me back? As a friend, sure, but..." He didn't exactly want to be Remus' friend. Not his flatmate, not his lessor, not even his friend. Sirius didn't hold hands, he didn't cuddle; to his understanding friends didn't do those, but he wanted to hold Remus and cuddle his geeky arse and hold his frigging hand so badly it was making him want to puke. Yeah, he was a bloody school girl, all right. "I noticed today that when I stop thinking and just let things go, I'm like a bullet train towards him, and I don't want to ruin this by driving him away. So I have to constantly think about it, about him and how he makes me feel so I won't be _at him_. You know? Does that make any sense?" He inhaled. His thoughts started to gather themselves as he voiced them. He should do this more often. He watched Lily nod at him. "You remember how I said earlier that I might... jump on him? Yeah well, I'm beyond that now and I'm like a feline, already crouched on the ground, ready to attack, waiting for the opportunity. I don't know how he might react, so I don't want to do that; I have to I think about everything in order to keep myself from attacking him, and that's when I get nervous and you two know how shi...sh kebab I am when I'm nervous." He was talking like a robot and he wasn't sure if he had made any sense but he didn't care. He made sense to himself. Finally.

Lily nodded slowly. "So you're afraid to be yourself because you think you might flirt with him if you relax."

"Have you met me?" asked Sirius quietly. "I once chatted up a streetlamp."

After glimpsing at James and Harry who were still playing on the sofa, Lily said, "Obviously this is very important to you, so... Don't pursue him, okay? Don't act like he's someone you need to have. Just be you. For if he's as nice as you give him credit for, then I think he deserves to know the real you." She smiled at Sirius. "You know, the real you is kind of amazing. Be friendly, flirt with him if it comes naturally, but don't overthink it. See where things go from there." She shrugged lightly and straightened her back. "I'm sure he'll show you if he's interested. You know what to do if he does that."

Sirius made a face. "What if he doesn't? Show me."

Lily said, "Then you will call me and we do a bit of crying over him, and I will set you up with one of James' co-workers. I mean, if you've suddenly started liking geeks, then that's a perfect place to continue."

Sirius stared at her, his jaw tight. "I'm _never_ doing that again."

* * *

Remus yawned and rubbed his eye behind his black-rimmed Wayfarer-glasses as he padded to the living room from his room-to-be. No socks. In his light purple tee and a pair of light blue pyjama bottoms with thin red vertical stripes, Sirius thought the man was cute as a button. A sexy, tall button. Was that even a thing? They ought to be a thing. "Film nights are so draining," muttered Remus. "One might think they couldn't be, but they so are."

"You look absolutely beaten." Sirius watched his crush affectionately from the kitchen arch while drinking some water. A crush! What a delightfully idiotic word for a grown man. What a delightfully idiotic word for a grown man who was _crushing_ for another grown man, who, most likely, was not into men, so yeah. Delightful.

"I _feel_ beaten," Remus went on and yawned while trudging forwards. "I thought I would have been able to fix my bed after getting back here, but I'm just... tired." He stopped in front of Sirius and asked him, "How is it possible that I'm bushed even though I haven't really even done anything?" He threw his hands in the air. "What have I done? Nothing! It's not like running the shop has ever made me this tired before."

Behind his glass, Sirius offered him a smile as a reply; it may have been a bit too foolish, his grin, but it wasn't like he was able to control his facial muscles after 10pm and in front of the guy he really fancied. And if he had started contorting his face with his hands into an expression not-so-goofy, Remus might have been suspicious.

Remus ruffled his hair a bit, yawning and twirling on his feet as though he wasn't sure which way to go. "...God. I need to do everything tomorrow. I finally have a day off." He smiled happily but very tiredly to Sirius. "Yay."

"Moving is exhausting." The way Remus' eyebrows puckered when he yawned again made Sirius' stomach all woozy. So this was how being smitten felt like? Okay, he had totally forgotten. Felt like a food poisoning. "You need to lie down. You..." Sirius shrugged flippantly. "Maybe want to sleep with me?" Too late did he realise what he had actually said and he almost choked on his water. Fuckhead, arse and tit-shagging shit.

"No, I don't want to impose," Remus mumbled drowsily as he slogged into the kitchen past him. "The sofa's fine."

Sirius exhaled, relieved that the guy wasn't going to hit him in the nose, but then, as it obviously was the next smart thing to do, he decided to go over his shoulder with an intelligent, "Richmond's an absolute crapper for something like that, and if you sleep on him, you'll be all stiff tomorrow, from all the wrong places. Sleep on me instead."

Brilliant.

Remus watched him listlessly with tired eyes as he filled himself a glass of water from the tap. Honestly, who could tell someone like _that_ to sleep on a sodding sofa? Sirius chuckled at himself. "I mean, _on the bed_, obviously." Sirius shook his head. He was doing fine. No problems. "At least feel the mattress, hmm? It's great and you're going to love it." He lowered his glass on the bureau by the wall and next to Frank, and moved to his bed and pulled the thick duvet from the way, gesturing Remus to follow him and sit on the edge of the bed. Evidently being too exhausted to even begin to protest, Remus obeyed him, carrying his glass of water with him.

Once seated on the bed, Remus just sat there, squishing the mattress between his fingers, his hair ruffled and slightly damp from the shower he had taken just a while earlier, other leg of his pyjama bottoms hiked up and his strange _Welcome to Night Vale_ –shirt a bit too loose on him. Sirius blinked at him. The guy looked like a mess. Remus sat there, absolutely and sleepily disordered and absolutely fucking gorgeous.

Sirius found himself thinking that he enjoyed that sight way too much. He gently took the glass from the man, asking, "It's nice, isn't it?"

"Yes," Remus admitted, bouncing a bit on the bed. Sirius tried to distract himself by placing the glass on the small table that was at the head of the bed – the bed hadn't a headboard and if it did, it would have been much more interesting than Remus, next to whom Sirius did not want to snuggle at all. "It's very soft and very... very comfy."

Oh god. Sirius just had to walk to his balcony door. Air, he needed air. As he opened the door, something crossed his mind; something he hadn't thought to ask earlier. That's how completely wrapped up in thinking about the guy had he been. He turned around, eyeing the man again and said, "Sorry for asking, but why did you need another place so quickly?" Then he added with a chortle, silently hoping, "Did you break up or something?"

Sounding as though doped on meds, Remus chuckled a bit as he kept bouncing on the bed. Shit. Was this guy in a relationship, then? With whom? And could Sirius maybe drive them from the country? With guns and tigers? "I just..." Remus lifted a hand to his mess of a hair. "Don't laugh, all right? It's a touchy subject and all the people I've told have always... found it hilarious."

"Laugh?" Sirius asked, fanning the balcony door as though it was speeding the process of getting some fresh air into the apartment. "Why would I laugh? I never laugh. At least not at the jokes in Daily Mail."

Seeming horrified, Remus stopped bouncing. He asked, "You read Daily Mail?"

"I had a low point in my life," Sirius said sullenly, leaving the balcony door open and walking to his front door. "What I'm saying is that I wouldn't laugh at you." He stopped and stared at his locks. "Unless you tell me you've recently developed an irrational fear of spruces, and that's the reason you needed quickly to find a place with them nowhere in the near. We only have maples and other... fancy ones."

He heard Remus yawn. He let out a small squeak at the end of each one. "You would laugh at that?"

"Or cry," Sirius told the door with a squint as he checked all the locks. "I'm not entirely sure."

"Just," Remus started as Sirius returned to him. He seemed completely worn out as he watched Sirius stand at the end of the bed. "Please don't laugh."

Sirius nodded slowly and crossed his arms. When he spoke, his tone of voice was as grave as he was able to muster. "I am going to laugh if it's funny."

"Then I'm not telling you," Remus said with a faint, but awfully tired smile. Maybe he thought that Sirius was not going to notice, but he was biting his lip again. It still looked adorable and very distracting, by the way. "Okay, I..." Remus lifted his eyes on Sirius' again and seemed to battle with the next words, whether or not they should come out. "I volunteered at an experimental lunacy program at the medical school."

He had done what now? Sirius blinked, letting his arms drop on his sides. Sorry? What?

"That's why I needed a place in the central-London, because the hospital school... thing is here," Remus continued as Sirius said nothing. "The program starts next Tuesday and it goes on for six months; twice a month, a few days at a time. I did some adding up and –" He stopped and yawned, bringing his hands to cover his face. From behind them, he resumed with, "Uh, it turned out it would cost me less to move than it would have if I had kept my flat in Harrow." Remus blinked lazily at Sirius, who was staring at him back. No signs of life. "Although the apartments here are a lot more expensive than there, even the small ones, but I've wanted to move ever since I got that place." He crunched up his nose. "I hate the tub and the lighting and the whole place smells like wet dog." He pouted helplessly, making it very hard for Sirius to stay put and just listen. "I wasn't even thinking of bringing all my stuff with me, and was straight up looking for a single room since I cannot afford a flat in this part of city. I could have moved my bed in the store, but that would have just been nutty. So, uh the rest of my furniture are in a storage room here somewhere now, waiting for me to move again after the program's done." Remus watched Sirius' feet. "There you have it."

Now Sirius managed a, "What?" Had he heard right? His eyes widened considerably. So this guy was –

"I'm not crazy," Remus hasted, fixing his eyes on Sirius. "Really, I'm not. It might sound as though I am, but honestly, I just suffer from insomnia, which is exceptionally dependent on the changes of the moon." He smiled awkwardly. "The moon, yeah? In the sky. That kind of lunacy. I can't sleep when there's a full moon. It affects me in a very strange way, making me anxious and stressed to the point I stay awake for days."

Sirius just gaped at him.

"Sometimes I can sleep a little better, like on waxing moon, as in now, I can sleep for four, five hours. But on full moon I cannot sleep at all." Remus smiled sadly. His speech was getting a somewhat Scottish tone and it was rather endearing. "Since I have a shop to run and I can't really concentrate when I'm tired, for like a week before and after full moon... I don't really use medicine that much, and I was looking for some herbs or something and I came across this thing, so..." He yawned broadly again. "They've tried it before, I think, but I couldn't find much about it, yet I decided to give it a shot even though it might be futile. What do I have to lose."

Sirius still managed to say nothing.

"I'm really blathering here," mumbled Remus.

Yes, he was.

But since Sirius answered with silence, Remus sighed. "Once I almost scratched my eyes out so I could get some sleep," he continued with a sad nod. "As I said, it's full moon on next Tuesday, so I'm going to check in at the hospital on Tuesday evening and then spend a pleasant night of not sleeping at all, while I'm being tested and probed probably and then they're going to test me more in the morning. Maybe." He glanced at Sirius. "That's what the lady said, at least. I can't wait." He shook his head, his face pained again. Sirius had to sit next to him on the bed. "I don't know, maybe I'll get some sort of super strong herbal sleeping pills, or Mjölnir." He ruffled his hair again and progressed to scratch his neck from there. "I just want to sleep."

Sirius licked his lips as he watched the man by his side. Really? An actual fucking lunatic? An actual, fucking _adorable_ lunatic with amazing hair and ridiculously inviting pair of eyes. What was going on? For some odd-arse reason, Sirius felt more drawn to this man now, like a dried-up whale feels drawn to the ocean waves; like a moth feels an urge to ravage your favourite jacket. Sirius was like a fat camp kid in front of a mountain of Twinkies. /End of shitty analogs. Obviously it wasn't as bad as sniffing Asian underwear. Sirius blinked and asked Remus softly, "So basically you are PMSing because of the moon?"

"What?" asked Remus tiredly.

"Nothing," said Sirius with a small grin. "But aren't you sleepy now? You're yawning and I'm kind of scared for your jaws. I can see your uvula." Big mouth and no gag reflex! Holy – "You said it's about a week until the full moon." Remus nodded slowly at him and Sirius continued, "So even though you look seriously like you're about to pass out, you might only be able to sleep for three hours tonight? Am I understanding this correctly?"

The man yawned in a way Sirius thought his mouth was honestly going to tear. "I'm... not crazy."

"You sure about that?" Sirius asked him kindly.

Once Remus had got some air into his lungs, he fixed his eyes behind his glasses on Sirius again. All the yawning had made his eyes a tad watery. "I don't know, maybe I am, but not like _Cuckoo's Nest_, okay?" Remus mumbled, and licked his lips. Sirius stared at him in the eye. The hazels were so sincere. "I'm not a Korean cyborg or I don't want to go fighting in a basement with my imaginary friend." He seemed to be very deep in thought. "I promise to keep my clothes on... when it's compulsory."

That Remus needn't to vouch. Sirius smiled faintly at the man, but kept his words in secret.

"Please, don't throw me out. I don't want to live in the back of my shop," Remus said desperately, grasping Sirius' cardigan sleeve as if doing that would have saved him from the streets. (Well, it sort of did.) He turned his voice into a whisper, "I promise not to go Patrick Bateman on you. I didn't even brought an axe with me." He lowered his voice a bit more. "Your neighbours might have given me the eye if I did."

This guy couldn't possibly be serious. Sirius felt his lips curve into a full-on grin. He lightly touched Remus on the upper arm again before standing up and saying, "I'm not that kind of a man who tosses a _lunatic_ out in the cold. That's just not right, if you really think about it." Remus was gazing up at him intently. "We have to be generous and kind to the insane folk."

"I am not insane," Remus tried again, emphasising every syllable. Sirius wanted to reach out and hold his fingers on the man's Adam's apple, just to feel the vibrating that accompanied his speech. "I'm just –"

Sirius didn't lean over to Remus to kiss him quiet, even though he wanted to; he just waved a finger at the guy in the air between them, whilst going, "You're just an occasionally insomnious teetotaller with a money tree and an enormous amounts of information about spaceships and weird-arse movies. That's not crazy in my book. That's..." Sirius nodded to himself as he agreed on, "Eccentric." And very fucking charming, had he ever mentioned that before? Just putting it out there.

"What's so eccentric about that?" Remus stared at him from the bed edge, on where he had evidently rooted like a plant. An Edinburghian tea-drinking plant. "The money tree was for you and you _named_ it. Also, and don't think I haven't noticed this, but you've painted a portrait of a man with two heads. It's on the bathroom wall, thus hardly unnoticeable."

Sirius laughed as he removed his cardigan and tossed it on the closest Pelican. "You're wrong, love. He didn't have two heads – he had one, and then a parasite soul of another inhabited the back of his head. There was only one head, but with two faces." He smiled as though that had been obvious. And it was. "Right material for a loo, don't you think?"

Remus stared at him. "A parasite soul?"

"Yes."

"And that's textbook-crazy, right there. That's like..." Remus cut his sentence short, licking his lips, as he evidently thought about something. Sirius wished the guy would have done the same lip-licking at the sight of Sirius removing his clothes, even though it was just a cardigan. Add that to the list entitled _Never Stop Dreaming, You_. Briefly closing his eyes, Remus picked up where he left off, "_Spellbound_ dream sequence –crazy, and that was designed by Salvador Dalí. Utterly bizarre."

They were meant for each other, then. Sirius and his Scottish unicorn. "He was a brilliant, yet slightly zany genius. One of my inspirations, actually."

"That explains a lot, then." Remus half-grinned droopily in Sirius' direction. Maybe he wasn't exactly aiming it at Sirius since his eyes were closed.

Sirius wanted to snog the man so frigging badly, then throw away their clothes, play with the freckles and moles a bit, and continue on with the snogging. On the bed where Remus already was and which he liked. Step one, complete. Step two?

Remus yawned again, bringing a hand to cover his mouth. "Oh... man." He lifted his eyes on Sirius, who certainly was not staring at him back. "I think I'm still going for the sofa. Do you have an extra blanket or something I could use? If not, it's all right. I can manage without. I'm... very warm."

Step two? Anyone? A bit disappointed, Sirius said, "Yeah. Just a second."

He ran to the bedroom that was going to be Remus'; at some point of his life he had stacked all the linen and whatnot in the top cupboards. He snatched a light brown fleece blanket, a pillow and a cover for it from the shelves, gathering all them in his lap and ambling back to the man.

Who had fallen asleep on the bed.

Sirius sighed. "Two seconds?" He watched Remus' lids, which didn't move at all as he was sleeping his face mushed against one of Sirius' pillows, his glasses askew on his face. "Really? Not that I complain, seeing you there, but man, you are fast."

He tossed the blanket and its friends on the empty sofa next to him, moved to the occupied side of his bed and gently with a firm grasp, he lifted Remus' severely sleepy legs on it – and after taking the man's glasses off and placing them on the nightstand behind the bed, Sirius straightened Remus' bottoms, his tee, and pulled the duvet on him.

Then he just stared at the guy for a while, which was totally normal and not creepy at all.

But once he realised he was actually sitting on the bed edge, his fingers running on the duvet and almost on Remus' cheek, Sirius jumped up and took a thought-straightening stroll around his intriguing flat, while trying to remember what in the fuck did he usually do when he was alone and not sleepy and not quite ready to recline on his bed next to a man he wanted to touch, oh so very bloody much. What could he do? He had even finished his newest painting a few days ago.

Oddly enough he didn't want to drink the wine Remus had brought him, nor wank to the Manchester United; he didn't feel like watching shitty television replays, so he opted to keep his telly off. He again padded to the door of the emptied bedroom, watched the neatly lined packages of scant and stored furniture, bags of clothes, Remus' laptop on the floor. He cleaned his bathroom cabinet, polished his boots (Steve Madden's Gramm) and ate an apple that tasted like a dry log. He watered his plants, watered Frank for the first time, checked his bookshelf and judged his decrepit copy of _Wuthering Heights_, but from the long hair of Heathcliff on the cover, his eyes travelled to his bed. Sirius smiled a bit. Yeah... He didn't feel like fantasising about the Yorkshire moors that night. He shoved the book back on the shelf and took his sketchbook from the lower one.

His mind had built a nest in Scotland and he needed to capture the whole thing on paper, so he slumped into his empty Pelican and started sketching with an 8B graphite pencil.

No, he wasn't peering at the beautiful and oddly peaceful sight of the man sleeping in his bed nearby. Sleeping, in his bed. _Sleep-ing_. With a steady, deep breathing, his now even more tousled hair sprawled on the fucking pillow, and his hands clinging on to that duvet like he was going to have a heart attack if he let go.

Why –

The guy was asleep and _still_ looked lovely. So it had nothing to do with his way of talking or the way he made his hair and how intently he fixed his eyes on things. How his voice ringed for hours in Sirius' ears after he had said the last of his words, how delicately his long fingers touched various objects, how he was so incredibly awkward but nothing like it at the same time.

Remus wasn't doing any of those things at that moment and still he made Sirius feel lightheaded.

Sirius sighed and brought a hand to his eye. His heart thumped crazily against his ribs. Seriously, he had a fucking crush on the guy.


End file.
